Classic Poem

We have journied, old companions, in the storm and in the sun,
Many a weary way together since our partnership begun.
Ye were good and faithful servants, but no longer fresh and fair;
Time has married your sheeny beauty, dainty shape and jaunty air.
But, as some disabled soldier is beguiled from pang and pain
By the sight of his good weapon, battered by the iron rain,
Ye wile me from the present, with its care and trouble sore,
To the pleasures, pains and perils of the days that come no more.
We have crossed the sea together, paced the steamer's reeking deck,
When the heavens brooded darkness, the storm-wind threatened wreck;
Nestled in our little cabin, with its light so cold and dim,
Haunted by weird shapes and shadows, like sea serpents green and grim;
Where the huge waves struck the bull's eye, and went howling on their way,
Like a troop of hungry demons disappointed of their prey.
O, that little whited cabin! how it rollicked and careened,
While its mirror scintillated like the one eye of a fiend,
And its life-preservers, dangling from the ceiling to and fro,
Whispered horrible suggestions to the home-sick wretch below.
O, that odorous little cabin! with its hard, uneasy bed,
Where I always wakened wondering if I were alive or dead,
Till I saw familiar garments strewn on sofa-back and stand,
That reminded me, thank Heaven, of the dry and solid land.
But when we were just as wretched as poor human souls can be,
We sighted dear old Cherburg, quiet Cherburg, by the sea.
And that night, in hoods and blankets, like five phantoms in a row,
We crept down the slippery gangway to the little tug below.
That looked, amidst the blackness around, above, beneath,
Like the fabled boat of Charon on the fabled stream of Death,
Our goodly ship had anchored full five weary miles from land,
Where we could not see each other, could not see a lifted hand,
For the sky was black above us and the sea was black below,
And the tug-boat, like a bubble on the waves, tossed to and fro.
And we heard the howling billows, felt the pattering of the rain,
As we sat there in our misery, too much frightened to complain.
Nevertheless, it bore us safely through the plashing rain and spray,
From the midnight on the ocean to the midnight on the quay,
Where, worn, and wet, and weary, in the darkness and the rain,
Every heart and limb a-shiver with anxiety and pain,
We were held as hapless fellows for some high offense enthralled,
Till our passports were examined and our baggage over-hauled.
Thence we wandered on, good bottines, over many a foreign shore,
Famous in historic story, rich in scientific lore,
And immortal forms of beauty, precious, priceless and sublime.
That the Heaven inspired creators left along the paths of time.
We have wandered far together, through the shadow and the sun:
But we are a decade older, and our journeying is done.
Yet my memory holds her treasures, and recounts them at her will,
And my fancy, never weary, goes on many a ramble still;
Goes to palace parks and gardens, rich with odoriferous blooms;
To grand, antique cathedrals, dim with many-colored glooms;
Threads the high halls of the Louvre, with their treasures of old days;
Reads the littleness of greatness on the graves of Pere la Chaise;
Loiters in Place de la Concord, where the guillotine once stood,
Sending forth a fearful river of hot tears and human blood.
Then she flits to lovely Rhineland, with its purple-laden vines,
Its hoary feudal ruins, and its holy pilgrim shrines;
And she sails a-down the Neckar, when the summer sun-shine, low,
Gives to Heidelberg and Kaiserstuhl a tender, rosy glow;
Threads the castle, now a ruin, but of old as fair and grand,
As befitted the proud Palatine that ruled the Teuton land;
She refills the stately chambers, lonely, desolate and bare,
With the rich and royal company that whilom gathered there.
Then she threads the park at Wimar, with its sunshine and its bloom;
Steals into Goethe " Garten-haus, " and lingers round his tomb;
Or, in Schiller's " Arbeit zimmer, " with all holy memories fraught.
Reads the legends on the tapestry that royal fingers wrought
In honor of the truest heart, the soul of purest fire,
That ever dwelt in human guise or swept the poet's lyre.
Then she strays beside the Tiber, climbs St. Peter's lofty dome,
And muses in the Vatican, art's treasure-house, at Rome;
Loiters round the ancient Forum, scales the Coliseum's wall,
Where the many-colored lichens, like bright banners, float and fall,
When the full moon, high in Heaven, drifts her silver o'er the floor,
Where gladiators battled till the ground was dank with gore,
And a multitude of Christians sealed with blood their faith in God,
While an Emperor applauded, and the world obeyed his nod.
Then she flits beyond the city, with its noises and its frets,
Where the tuneful heart of Shelley lies, beneath the violets,
And the little marble monument from age to age repeats
The last, despairing utterance of the broken-hearted Keats.
Thus, at home, beside the hearthstone, in my indolence serene,
I can shut my eyes and see again the places I have seen;
Can forget the wear and worry, cares and trials of the day,
And without the toil of going, live in countries far away.