Classic Poem

There is a forest in the wild north land
So weird and grim the very lynxes thread,
With quickened pulse, its glades and shadows dread.
Its jagged stems, black and fire-blasted, stand
Close-rooted in the dull and barren sand;
And over league-long hills and valleys spread
Those ruined woods — a forest dark and dead —
A giant wreck in desolation grand:
Like to that other world, the mind of man,
Wherein are wastes once innocent and dear,
Where beauty throve till fires of passion ran,
And blighted all. When to such deserts drear
The spirit turns, in retrospection wan,
The proudest starts, the boldest shrinks in fear.