Classic Poem

I

With dreamy eyes undimmed by care,
And earnest mouth and dusky hair,
More calm she is than halcyon air

Upon a languorous night in June,
What time the scented breezes swoon,
And brown bats flit across the moon.

More pure she is than the petals white
That dimple the dark breasts of Night,
As tiny cherub-fingers might.

And cinctured with simplicity,
She moveth like the singing sea,
And wotteth not the melody

That in her bosom-deep abides,
Rhythmic eternal as the tides.

II

We tremble at the words she saith,
And wonder her audacious breath
Defying Love, despising Death.

And yielding neither moan nor prayer
To appease the skeleton Despair,
Whose fingers rattle in her hair.

By weight of many woes unbowed,
Imperious and pale and proud,
She sitteth in a thunder-cloud.

And, peering thro' the purple mist,
Our 'wildered eyes behold her twist
The jagged lightning round her wrist.