Classic Poem

Night's wanderers! why hang ye there
With angel look so bright;
As if ye stooped, bright sons of air!
From some far distant height?

Ye gaze upon the sleeping earth,
Like mother o'er her child;
And ye too saw its infant birth,
And looked on it, and smiled.

And come ye now, when day grows dim,
To bend the listening ear;
And meet the heaven-ascending hymn
From hearts to you so dear?

Why hear I not that seraph voice,
That woke with earth's first morn;
And do ye not, bright ones, rejoice
As when ye saw it born?

Ah! voiceless now each golden lyre
Has slumbered many a year;
And each new day ye see expire
Is numbered by a tear.

Yet still ye turn the tearful eye
Upon earth's wayward course;
For love divine can never die,
Too deep, too pure its source!

And years shall come — when once again
Your golden lyres shall swell
That sweet, that long forgotten strain,
For aye on them to dwell.