Classic Poem

The day is closed, that spectral sun
Whose mighty course so strangely run
Will never die in Afric's story
Will never lose its awful glory
Dark solemn, hidden terrible
For not on earth its radiance fell
From the first rising of the light
To the dread drawing-on of night
A dim eclipse before it hung
A shadow o'er its disk was flung
A shield of Gloom it passed through heaven.
A One bloody ring around it drawn
No joy with those red beams was given
Earth under it looked cold & lorn
That orb is sunk in death's chill river
It went down darkly mid the waves
Whose pitchy ridges seemed to quiver
A voice rang through the world of graves
When the great sun its last light quelled
Where those deep stormy waters swelled
The waves of death, when torch & plume
Bore Percy to his shrine-like tomb
When drum to drum all muffeled spoke
When the wild wailing trumpet woke
And many sounds of lordly mourning
Came on the still, hushed, voiceless air
And lamps but not of triumph burning
Threw to the sky their ghastly glare
When deep bells, pealed upon the night
And requiem music poured its might
And Holy fanes were filled of light
Sepulchral, pale, & dim
When the pall-bearers glided by
With foot-steps measured solemnly
To the slow funeral hymn
Sadly they bore him to his place
Not mid the fathers of his race
The vault was void & lone
Arched like a palace wide & high
A mansion meet for royalty
When comes the mandate “monarch die”
To call him from his throne
He rested by the Calabar
His kindred dust reposed afar
Where storied Gambia glides
Trees waved above their tranquil homes
Cloud-shadows slept upon their tombs
Dew fell, soft sunlight came & went
As free as in the Arab's tent
Winds kissed their marble sides
And came no dream, with Death's dim sleep
Of all those silent graves
Came there no memory sad & deep
To moan of Gambia's waves
No murmur of the breeze that swept
Amid his native groves
No holy voice that long had slept
To speak of ancient loves
Was there no strange, no haunting sound
[To] wail his dying pillow round
Of whispering woods & gliding streams
That o'er his soul brought wondrous gleams
Not like th' uncertain light of dreams
& not like wildering memory's beams
But quiet & clear & bright
Of what was once, but is no more
A glimpse of a retiring shore
Fading as swift as light
But while it lasts, each well-known place
The sharpened eye may clearly trace
surging sea
Rolled on in vast solemnity
As if no rush of surge & foam
Then bore the shuddering vessel home
As if the dark expanse before
Showed mid its waves no other shore
A lone, dim, blue unbounded line
Which never yet could man define
And none have e'er returned to tell
What visions in its darkness dwell
has crossed those seas
To speak its hidden mysteries
Men say that sometimes wrapt in gloom
& fraught with tidings dread of doom
A spectral sail has wandered back
& noiseless ploughed its ancient track
But when th' appointed work was done
Has past like mist-wreaths in the sun
And passed there o'er this phantom sea
No cherished shape of memory
Through the dull rushing of its water
Spoke no remembered tongue
Marial bright Italia's daughter
Was not thine image flung
In all its clear & kindling ligh[t]
Before thy dying Percy's sight
quenched in gloom
Long had that flower lain dead
And long beneath the heavy tomb
That palm had bowed its head
Mouldering, mouldering silently
Gambia's quiet waters by
Morning, evening vainly shining
Day light's rise & dusk's declining
Vainly on that calm grave fell
Earth had heard her last farewell

Yet as the star once twinkled
Again its ray might glow
And that flower with dews besprinkled

And the palm so shrunk & wrinkled
To stately stature grow

One momment reappearing
One moment & no more
The light the glory wearing
That erst on earth she wore
The smile the step, the bearing
All known, all loved before

The eye so full of fire
The brow so marked with pride