Classic Poem

When Nehemiah rode into the dark,
And stones of ruin cumber'd his advance,
And old localities were hard to mark,
Methinks he spent some moments in a trance
Of sounds from past and future—Abraham's foot
With Isaac's on Moriah; then the sigh
Of Moses, beyond Jordan doom'd to die,
So near the soil wherein his heart had root:
‘Ay!’ thought he, ‘and my own fond suit was me
By earthly and by heavenly sympathy!’
Then came sweet tones from far Gennesaret,
A plash, as from the casting of a net,
The noise as of a Cross grounded and set
Hard by him, and a loud and lonely cry!