Classic Poem

Me shalt thou quicken unto life renewed,
Thou living brightness, falling on dead faith;
Scattering my patient gloom, as one returned
From golden travels his glad lesson saith,
And, telling of far climes, and faery pleasures,
Makes rich the hearer's heart with fancied treasures.

A circling star that comes with counted years,
Bringing the heavens unnumbered to our sight,
Startling our twilight with immortal joys
For which we wrestle with the spell of night,
Fling off the measured burthen of our sleeping,
And walk the deathless fields in angels' keeping.

Nay, be not mortal, do not bend to me,
Nor nod too friendly from thy shining plain;
I am with my own lowliness at home,
That thou shouldst stoop to mete with it, were pain.
So, let me hold thee in thine own belonging,
Where reverential eyes can do no wronging.

Since last this gem was in our crystal set,
It hath a lustre doubly great and wide;
As all pure essence gathers purity,
A lesser planet is his duteous bride;
Ah! does she know his glory as I breathe it,
And cherish more — her heart should faint beneath it.

There are who throng thy footsteps, while I sit
Intent on oft-remembered words of thine;
Thou growest familiar to their careless sight,
And yet thy presence is not theirs, but mine;
A boon held from me, for its very nearness —
A joy beyond all joys, of dread and dearness.

No more — too costly is my love for thee
To sow in words that other hearts may reap.
Love shall be pardoned if he husband love,
Hoarding the inward sweetness he would keep
To feed the hunger of unlightened hours —
Who misses it? the bee's theft from the flowers.

No more — a music long forborne came near
To wake the frost-bound pulses of delight;
And thy pale brow, and weirdly golden locks
Passed as a glorious warning of the night.
Keep my vows, Spirit, in thy distant heaven;
I have thy pledge of peace — my heart is shriven.