Classic Poem

T HERE'S neighbor John, dull as a stone,
An earthly man is he;
In Nature's face no single trace
Of beauty can he see.
He's wrought with her for sixty years—
Believes he's done his duty—
Yet all that time seen naught sublime,
Nor drank one draught of beauty.

His only joy since when a boy
Has been to plod and moil,
Until his very soul itself
Has grown into the soil.
He has no visions, hears no voice
To make his spirit start;
The glory and the mystery
Ne'er settled on his heart.

The great vault's hanging o'er his head,
The earth is rolling under,
On which he's borne from night till morn,
With not one look of wonder.
Talk not to him of yonder clouds,
In glory mass'd together,
John but beholds in all their folds
Some index of the weather.

Talk not of old cathedral woods
Their Gothic arches throwing,
John only sees in all those trees
So many saw-logs growing.
For in the woods no spirit broods,
The grove's no longer haunted,
The gods have gone to realms unknown,
And earth is disenchanted.

In day, with all its bright array,
And black night still returning,
He never saw one gleam of awe,
Tho' all their lamps were burning.
The seasons in their mystic round
Their magic work are doing;
Spring comes and goes, the wild-flow'r blows,
And Winter's storms are brewing;

And Indian summer steps between,
In robes of purple gleaming,
Or in a maze of golden haze
The live-long day is dreaming:
John stands with dull, insensate look,
His very soul grown hoary;
And sees in all but sear leaves fall,
And not one gleam of glory.

For beauty and sublimity
Are but a useless blunder;
And naught can start awe in his heart—
Save loudest peals of thunder!
He knows the world's a solid world,
And that a spade's a spade,
But thinks for food and raiment all
The heav'ns and earth were made.