Classic Poem

Have we been loving, when we fondly dreamed
God loved, — and watched and guarded us and held?
Is the swift world by soulless wings impelled
And hath the sun for ever heartless gleamed?
Are the blue depths just blue and nothing more
That once with countless habitations teemed
And steps o'er which great armies used to pour
And walls that with the eternal glory beamed?

O simple sweet world hanging in the void
Of tremulous ether, terribly alone
Thou art, — by thine own innate forces buoyed
And through the air's dense populous eddies thrown
With pale Chance at the helm. O world forlorn,
Better it had been hadst thou ne'er been born!