Classic Poem

Sole watcher in the solemn shrine of night,
While in primeval innocence of sleep
The world lies hushed, with folded sense and sight,
And wind and wave their wards of silence keep;
I stand beneath the splendor of the stars
That crowd the illimitable courts above,
Like one who dreams behind his prison bars
Of dim, delicious scenes of peace and love.

The links of care that fetter my worn feet,
The load of life, the tyranny of time,
The vain desire, the sorrow, the defeat,
Have fallen from me as in a trance sublime;
And to my raptured spirit, winged with light,
The power of my exultant wish seems given
To rise beyond the shadowy realms of night,
And pierce the radiant mysteries of heaven.

Vain thought! afar, where in the dusky plain
The hamlet clusters round the ivied tower,
I hear an infant's fitful wail of pain,
And slow and deep the church-clock toll the hour;
And from the cold abstraction of the stars,
Those voices summon me to earth again,
Bid me reclasp my chain upon my scars
And lay me down among my fellow men.

Aye, vain the restless yearning and the dreams,
Vain the rebellion and divine despair!
Drawn ever toward those beautiful faint gleams,
Which are the glimpses of some state more fair,
The baffled spirit still returns to earth;
For brighter are the splendor of Love's eyes,
And the dull embers on the lowly hearth,
Than all the silent glory of the skies.