Classic Poem

It is the last dark hour, and from their cars,
That wheel them down through glimmering voids of light,
Leaning reluctantly, the hearkening stars
Hear the faint, final music of the night
Blend with the far, sweet voice of coming day,
And with the moon, low riding, wane away.

Like some soft-footed maiden, bearing high
A silver lamp above her timorous head,
The dawn mounts up the stairways of the sky,
Flushing the ashen east with lambent red,
Till from her topmost tower she looketh down,
Smiling through cloudy tresses wildly blown.

The world awakens; hark, from glen and copse,
Music and many voices of delight!
The splendor on the purple mountain tops
Descends, and all the summer plains are bright;
And all the luminous, pure sky above
Is calm and tender as the smile of love.