Classic Poem

That rising storm! It has awakened me;
My slumbering spirit starts to life anew;
That blinding spray-drift, how it falls upon me,
As on the weary flower the freshening dew.

That rugged rock-fringe that girds in the ocean,
And calls the foam from its translucent blue,
It seems to pour strange strength into my spirit, —
Strength for endurance, strength for conflict too.

And these bright ocean-birds, these billow-rangers,
The snowy-breasted, — each a winged wave —
They tell me how to joy in storm and dangers,
When surges whiten, or when whirlwinds rave.

And these green-stretching fields, these peaceful hollows,
That hear the tempest, but take no alarm,
Has not their placid verdure sweetly taught me
The peace within when all without is storm?

And thou keen sun-flash, through the cloud-wreath bursting,
Silvering the sea, the sward, the rock, the foam,
What light within me has thy pure gleam kindled?
'Tis from the land of light that thou art come.

And of the time how blithely art thou telling,
When cloud and change and tempest shall take wing;
Each beam of thine prophetic of the glory,
Creation's daybreak, earth's long-promised spring.

Even thus it is, my God me daily teacheth
Sweet knowledge out of all I hear and see;
Each object has a heavenly voice within it,
Each scene however troubled, speaks to me.

For all upon this earth is broken beauty,
Yet out of all what strange, deep lessons rise?
Each hour is giving out its heaven-sent wisdom,
A message from the sea, the shore, the skies.