Classic Poem

A torrent from the fissured rocks
With all the din of thunder rolls,
The solid earth its impact shocks,
Before it bow the oaken boles;
Transfixed with a voluptuous fear,
The wanderer listens in dismay;
The rock-bound stream bursts on his ear—
Yet whence it flows he cannot say.
So roll impetuously along
The unsuspected floods of song.

The minstrel shares the awful might
Of those who forge life's tangled chain.
Who can his magic members slight,
And who ignore his wild refrain?
His cry, by godlike powers sped,
Appeals to each impassioned soul;
He seeks the regions of the dead,
And soars to where the heavens roll.
'Twixt jest and earnest he can sway
Men's minds, and all the gamut play.

As when into a scene of mirth
Some giant apparition strides—
Some phantom of mysterious birth—
And, charged with dreadful portents, glides,
The earth's exalted recognise
The stranger from the other world,
No longer senseless revels rise,
And every mask aside is hurled;
For falsehood seeks to thrive in vain
In mighty Truth's triumphant reign.

And so man's grievances abate
When noble song enchants his ear;
He rises to a God's estate
And steps into the heavenly sphere.
No greater are the Gods than he,
No earthly thoughts his soul molest;
From all distractions he is free,
No fateful vision mars his rest.
Smoothed are the wrinkled lines of care
While music's charms the soul ensnare.

And as, after heartbreaking pain
And separation's bitter grief,
The child repentant seeks again
Upon his mother's breast relief,
So to the thoughts of early days,
When innocence was yet unstained,
From foreign lands and foreign ways
Song brings the wanderer home, regained,
To learn in Nature's loving school
What ne'er was taught by formal rule.