Classic Poem

" Where hast thou been on thy rainbow wing,
Soul of the light and festive song? "
" I have been where around the magic spring
The spirits of love and beauty throng;
There, to the sound of languishing airs,
They wheel their dance on the moon-lit well,
And every breath of the night-wind bears
Through wilds of roses the warbled spell;
Then it silently steals away,
Like a floating bird, when the sea is calm,
And the lingering breeze, with a fond delay,
Hovers around those bowers of balm:
Thence on my rainbow wing I flew,
To bear this bud of a rose to thee;
Never a fairer blossom blew,
Than this when it opens its leaves shall be. "

" Whither is now thy airy flight? "
" Over the blue and boundless ocean,
Where it lifts, to embrace the setting light,
Its golden waves with a softest motion:
Far to the pictured west I fly,
Where the wings of the spirits of fire are glancing,
And their radiant forms on the kindled sky,
Like sparks in a stormy sea, are dancing:
Thither I go, and I soon return,
When my torch is lit in the fount of glory,
That thy pen with a hallowed glow may burn,
When thou givest the names of the good to story.

" Then I will bring, from the coral cave,
Flowers of a brighter and purer hue
Than ever Hesperian gardens gave,
Or drank from the sky its tender blue;
Down in the fathomless deep they lie,
Tufted with leaves of glassy green,
And their pearly tints, like the opening sky
Through the rift of a cloud, look out between;
Some shall mimic the setting sun,
Or the reddening glow of a distant fire,
And in some every tint shall blend and run,
Like the mingling sounds on a trembling wire;
These I will pluck from the coral cave,
In the silent depths of the tropic sea;
Then the treasures of earth and sky and wave
Shall be borne on my rainbow wing to thee.

" Then I will bend my airy flight,
From my wanderings, back to the magic well,
Where the gentle spirits, who love the light
Of the moon, in its fullest beauty, dwell;
There, when the fountain bubbles over,
Shedding a soft and vapory dew,
Their glistening wings, as around they hover
In the silvery cloud, shall quiver through;
Whether I fly to the setting sun,
Or down in the depths of ocean roam,
Still I seek, when my flight is done,
In the wild of flowers, my cherished home. "