Classic Poem

Marble lyres mark
Where minor singers slumber,
And glistering night weeps
On willows above their graves;
But a wordless wind sweeps
Over the solid dark
As over Sappho's waves
Of keen thinkers without number.
The weakling who has known
A small grief has his meekness.
They who can teach and show
Know words he never names
Who sweeps the sobbing bow,
Whom Pity quickly claims.
Pity the strong alone
Who seldom show their weakness,
Whose hearts break with no sign
But withered lips and tresses,
Who know, if sounding chord
To all their thought were given,
If they trod out the wine
Longed for, from memory's presses,—
The dissonances, poured
Would sour their own heaven.