Classic Poem

Shall the summer have no singing?
Shall so much of good be given,
And no sweet return of praises
Rise to meet the songs of heaven?

" All my life, from morn till even,
So with happy cares be fraught,
That a slumbrous spell of silence
Chains the deeper founts of thought? "

So I mused one summer morning,
When sweet song the silence stirred,
Filling all the air with gladness,
From a little caged bird.

No especial pomp of sunrise
Woke that early joyous hymn;
No peculiar fount of blessing
Gushed that morning fresh for him.

" Only that the sun is coming, "
Rising slowly o'er the hill;
This familiar joy sufficing
All his happy heart to fill.

Only that the sun is coming, —
All the world's dear light and his, —
Therefore, o'er the still gray morning
Flows his song in ecstasies.

Yet his sun, this night departing,
Leaves him caged and desolate;
Whilst our Sun, in glory rising,
Bursts the cage, and shall not set;

Breaks the bars, unveils the eyesight,
Sets us free to gaze and soar,
Free for tireless song and service
In the day that dies no more.

Only that the Sun is coming!
Had we not a joy but this,
Should not speech o'erflow in singing,
And the heart be still in bliss?