Classic Poem

THEY sleep. Athwart my white
Moon-marbled casement, with her solemn mien
Silently watching o'er their rest serene,
Gazes the star-eyed Night.

My girl, elate or mild
By turns—as playful as a summer breeze
Or grave as night on starlit souther seas,
Sedate, strange woman-child.

My boy, my trembling star!
The whitest lamb in April's tenderest fold,
The bluest flower-bell in the shadiest wold
His gentle emblems are.

They are but two, and all
My lonely heart's arithmetic is done
When these are counted. High and holy One,
O hear me while I call!

I ask not wealth nor fame
For these my jewels. Diadem and wreath
Soothe not the aching brow that throbs beneath
Nor cool its fever-flame.

I ask not length of life
Nor earthly honours. Weary are the ways
The gifted tread, unsafe the world's best praise,
And keen its strife.

I ask not that to me
Thou spare them, though they dearer, dearer be
Than rain to deserts, spring-flowers to the bee,
Or sunshine to the sea.

But kneeling at their feet,
While smiles, like summer light on shaded streams,
Are gleaming from their glad and sinless dreams,
I would my prayer repeat.

In that alluring land
The future, where, amidst green stately bowers
Ornate with proud and crimson-flushing flowers,
Pleasure with smooth white hand

Beckons the young away
From glen and hill-side to her banquet fair,
Sin, the grim she-wolf, coucheth in her lair,
Ready to seize her prey.

The bright and purpling bloom
Of night-shade and acanthus cannot hide
The charred and bleaching bones that are denied
Taper and chrism and tomb.

Lord, in this midnight our,
I bring my lambs to Thee. Oh, by Thy ruth,
Thy mercy, save them from the envenomed tooth
And tempting poison-flower!

Thou crucified and crowned,
Keep us! We have no shield, no guide, but Thee!
Let sorrows come, let hope's last blossom be
By grief's dark deluge drowned;

But lead us by the hand,
Thou gentlest Guardian, till we rest beside
The still clear waters in the pastures wide
Of Thine unclouded Land!