Classic Poem

RIVER of the morn!
Fast thou flow'st and bright;
From the sundered East thou flowest,
Bearing down the Night.
Every cloud thy beauty drinketh;
Darkness from thy current shrinketh;
Leaving the Heavens empty quite,
For the conquering Light!

O, the Thought new-born!
Lovely 'tis, and bright:
Like some jewel of the morn,
Nursed in frozen night.
But it trembleth soon and groweth,
And dissolved in splendour floweth,
(Like the flooding dawn, that pours
O'er and o'er the cloudy shores,)
Till blind Ignorance wings her flight
From the conquering Light!

O, ye Thoughts of youth,
Long since flown away!
What ye want in truth,
Ye in love repay!
Though in shadowy forests hidden,
Like the bird that's lost and chidden,
Back again with all your songs,
Ye do come and soothe our wrongs,
Till the unburthen'd heart doth soar
Wiser than before!