Classic Poem

Here is no momentary majesty
That borrows from the season or the hour.
But ever is the queen upon her throne;
The bishop with his hands upraised to Heaven;
The soldier midst transfigurating fire.
Not girth of thy green girdle nor the thrust
That dares the scorn of Arcas, but the calm
Which mocks the changeful seasons at thy base
Inspires me to the music of this song.
Red August in the vales enwraps my hours
But thou hast white December all the year:
A whiter rose than ours that never fades;
So pure that I, a mortal, fain would know
Through what long twilight and beneath what suns
Hast thou kept fair thine everlasting snows!
The warlike Mars hath seen this flag of truce
Held patiently unsoiled, and granted peace
Unto the Earth; hath turned the comet's course
On spheres that raise no chamade. That pale orb,
When vapors veil the unambitious hills,
Doth lavish her cold kisses on thy brow.
'Tis thine to mediate twixt earth and sky;
And while thine head doth rise above the storm
Nor sun nor moon grows alien to the world.
Ah! who was He, who raised thy prostrate form
From long humility of level lands,
But One who hurls the mighty from their seats
And lifts on high the lowly sons of men!
O silent peak! the angels see thy thrust,
Above a sea of clouds, as men who looked
Upon the gleaming sword, Excalibur.
To mortals thou art something held aloof
When things familiar breed irreverence:
And that loud foot of conquest which blasphemes
The last, lone temple of the priestless wood
Shall never soil those fair, unwritten folds,
Where, on thy brow, God keepeth white a page
To pen His judgments on a boastful world.
Who looks up at thy chancel cannot keep
From out his vision noble fields of sky.
And deeper worshippers, when fretful creeds
Grow narrow as their pews, shall seek thy spires
And gain an unconfined theology.
Alone, and reverent, at thy base I stand:
Pour on my head the blessing. Could I sell
My birthright for a mess of pottage now?

'Tis summer and the prone limb of the earth
Is white with tender blossoms; madrigals
That wake the leaves make strange thy contrast's calm.
Ah! what a varied artist toned the hue
And limned the flower's minutest tracery
With hand that shaped this daring rise, that wears
So regally her tragic crown of snow.
Elias, Saint Elias! would that I
Might keep my head unsullied of the world;
And, like to thee, hold high cold Reason's dome
That bids thy clouds descend and slake the throats
Of fires that flame their passions round thy breast.
O dweller in gay Gotham, could I grant
Thy soul one breathless moment near this tower
How soon its soundless song would rouse the stars
That fell at virgin yieldings of thy youth!
How soon would fan the furnace of thy heart,
Consuming all her gods of yesterday!
How soon those vistas, washed with unclean light,
That lured thine eye from slim Alsarte's moon,
Would limn, in livid oils, their jaundiced glare!

Against the summer stars 'tis strange to see
O noblest summit of a lordly line,
Thy wild, white smoking drifts of winter blow.
So long my soul upon this fare hath fed
I yearn to call my comrades to the feast
Through the clear trumpets of this blast of song.
Too long their eyes rasorial have been:
Too long their tongues have harped of gold and plains
Where night lies down on pillow of their bread.
Here is a loaf that breaks continually.
And lo! there's many a vacant chair that calls
A laggard limb to this pine-scented vale
Where Saint Elias walks to meet the sea;
Her cloudy breath about her as she goes.