Classic Poem

The dappled clouds are broken; bright and clear
Comes up the broad and glorious star of day;
And night, the shadowy, like a hunted deer,
Flies from the close pursuer fast away.

Now on my ear a murmur faintly swells,
And now it gathers louder and more deep,
As the sweet music of the village bells
Rouses the drowsy rustic from his sleep

Hark! there's a footstep startling up the birds,
And now as softly steals the breeze along;
I hear the sound, and almost catch the words
Of the sweet fragment of a pensive song.

And yonder, in the clover-scented vale—
Her bonnet in her hand, and simply clad—
I see the milkmaid with her flowing pail:
Alas! what is it makes her song so sad?

In the seclusion of these lowly dells
What mournful lesson has her bosom learned?
Is it the memory of sad farewells,
Or faithless love, or friendship unreturned?

Methinks yon sunburnt swain, with knotted thong,
And rye-straw hat slouched careless on his brow,
Whistled more loudly, passing her along,
To yoke his patient oxen to the plough.

'Tis all in vain! she heeds not, if she hears,
And, sadly musing, separate ways they go,—
Oh, who shall tell how many bitter tears
Are mingled in the brightest fount below?

Poor, simple tenant of another's lands,
Vexed with no dream of heraldic renown;
No more the earnings of his sinewy hands
Shall make his spirit like the thistle's down.

Smile not, recipient of a happier fate,
And haply better formed life's ills to bear,
If e'er you pause to read the name and date
Of one who died the victim of despair.

Now morn is fully up; and while the dew
From off her sunny locks is brightly shed,
In the deep shadows of the solemn yew,
I sit alone and muse above the dead.

Not with the blackbird whistling in the brake,
Nor when the rabbit lightly near them treads,
Shall they from their deep slumbering awake,
Who lie beneath me in their narrow beds.

Oh, what is life? at best a narrow bound,
Where each that lives some baffled hope survives—
A search for something, never to be found,
Records the history of the greatest lives!

There is a haven for each weary bark,
A port where they who rest are free from sin;
But we, like children trembling in the dark,
Drive on and on, afraid to enter in.

Here lies an aged patriarch at rest,
To whom the needy never vainly cried,
Till in this vale, with toil and years oppressed,
His long-sustaining staff was laid aside.

Oft for his country had he fought and bled,
And gladly, when the lamp of life grew dim,
He joined the silent army of the dead—
Then why should tears of sorrow flow for him?

We mourn not for the cornfield's deepening gold,
Nor when the sickle on the hills is plied;
And wherefore should we sorrow for the old,
Who perish when life's paths have all been tried?

How oft at noon, beneath the orchard trees,
With brow serene and venerably fair,
I've seen a little prattler on his knees
Smoothing with dimpled hand his silver hair.

When music floated on the sunny hills,
And trees and shrubs with opening flowers were drest,
She meekly put aside life's cup of ills,
And kindly neighbors laid her here to rest.

And ye who loved her, would ye call her back,
Where its deep thirst the soul may never slake;
And Sorrow, with her lean and hungry pack,
Pursues through every winding which we take?

Where lengthened years but teach the bitter truth
That transient preference does not make a friend;
That manhood disavows the love of youth,
And riper years of manhood, to the end.

Beneath this narrow heap of mouldering earth,
Hard by the mansions of the old and young,
A wife and mother sleeps, whose humble worth
And quiet virtues poet never sung.

With yonder cabin, half with ivy veiled,
And children by the hand of mercy sent,
And love's sweet star, that never, never paled,
Her bosom knew the fulness of content.

Mocking ambition never came to tear
The finest fibres from her heart away,—
The aim of her existence was to bear
The cross in patient meckness day by day.

No hopeless, blind idolater of chance,
The sport and plaything of each wind that blows,
But lifting still by faith a heavenward glance,
She saw the waves of death around her close.

And here her children come with pious tears,
And strew their simple offerings in the sod;
And learn to tread like her the vale of years,
Beloved of man, and reconciled to God.

Now from the village school the urchins come,
And shout and laughter echo far and wide;
The blue smoke curls from many a rustic home,
Where all their simple wants are well supplied.

The labored hedger, pausing by the way,
Picks the ripe berries from the gadding vine:
The axe is still, the cattle homeward stray,
And transient glories mark the day's decline.