Classic Poem

I.

Is it not true, as one has proudly sung,
" A Poet's love is Immortality? "
Many a time and oft that note has rung
Echoings of high and heavenly harmony.
Sweet, when the weary day is done, to be
Greeted by budding lips and kindling eyes,
Pressed to the one true heart in ecstasy, —
Enchantment only worthy of the skies.
Repose my heart has sought, and all in vain;
Care, like a demon, hunts me everywhere;
In vain this faded brow a wreath may wear, —
Vain laurels, colder than the captive's chain:
A look, a word of fondness, kindly given,
Love-lit and tender, to that fame were heaven.

II.

O thou sole-sitting Spirit of Loneliness!
Whose haunt is by the wild and dropping caves,
Thou of the musing eye and scattered tress,
I meet thee with a passionate joy, no less
Than when the mariner, from off his waves,
Catches the glimpses of a far blue shore, —
He thinks the danger of his voyage o'er,
And, pressing all his canvas, steers to land,
With a glad bosom and a ready hand.
So I would hie me to thy desolate shade,
And seat myself in some deep-sheltered nook,
And never breathe a wish again to look
On the tossed world, but rather, listless laid,
Pore on the bubbles of the passing brook.