Classic Poem

Many a cycle has there been,
With gulphs of nothingness between;
Many a time have life and birth
Revisited the aged earth:
Learn, mortal, that to me alone,
The secret things of the past are known;
Mine is every charmed rhyme,
Freighted with spells of ancient time,
Strains divinely sweet, which sing
The deeds of many a giant king,
Whose life was mighty in each limb,
Whose soul was as the seraphim;
I can place before thine eye
The mirror of eternity,
I can show thee imaged there
Shadows of all things that were,
And bid oblivion's self unfold
The treasures of his cavern old;
Stately cities ever bright
With porphyry, and chrysolite;
And wild primeval things, that sleep
Low-buried in the purple deep.
Mine are all the ruins grey
Which, since their prime has passed away,
Are garmented, to Fancy's sight,
In the still beauty of the night:
Mine is Babylon the great,
Mine her river desolate,
And that sky-cleaving citadel,
Above the golden halls of Bel:
Mine are the towers along the Nile
Where Power and Wisdom dwelt ere while —
The labyrinths, whose courts enfold
The melancholy gods of old —
The obelisks, unfallen still,
On some lone Abyssinian hill,
Covered with uncouth shapes, which brood
Above the lion-haunted wood.
Hers is this world of life and breath,
But mine the treasuries of death;
All things holy and divine
Whose light on earth has ceased to shine,
High hopes and visions that are fled,
Pure feelings that have perished —
Deep love whose passionate caress
Grew still more tender in distress —
And all the genius of the dead
Which never can be rivalled.
Mine is the music pure and deep,
Such as poets hear in sleep,
Where genius, clear as heaven above,
And quickened by intensest love,
Dreams of the beautiful and true,
Such as the cold world never knew,
And feeling soft as morning dew,
Unite, like streams upon the lea,
Into one simple melody:
Mine are the maidens who delight
With tender loveliness, like night,
With voices of a thrilling sound
Which sheddeth peace and love around,
And pensive feelings deep, that shine
Through spiritual eyes divine;
If these have charms to move thee,
Follow and love me.
I covet not the incense blind,
The mad allegiance of mankind —
How should I, being the ancient queen
Of all beyond this narrow scene?
My kingdom knows nor time nor place,
It is the lone abyss of space —
The illimitable darkness thrown
Round petty systems, like a zone;
Still, though above the touch of woe,
I pity those who weep below.
As I sit, crowned with power, alone
Upon my everlasting throne,
I feel that the gloom around is rife
With the spirit of enduring life,
And cherish amid darkness dull
The image of the beautiful.
A thousand times has the light of Day
Startled those holy dreams away;
A thousand times has the brute mass
Felt God's eternal pinions pass
Through the gross element, that holds
Pale Chaos in her cumbrous folds;
I have seen it waken every time,
To be the theatre of crime.
I have seen sick dreams of unreal good,
As life and happiness pursued,
And the blessed hopes that cannot die
Again and again passed idly by.
I am wearied out at length to see
The same vain toil repeatedly —
The self-deceit, the ceaseless strife,
The utter vanity of life.
Her promised joys will end once more,
In gloom and sorrow, as of yore.
I am very weary of the past,
O take the peace I bring at last.