Classic Poem

THUNDER-PALLS through gorges trailing,
In their skirts the raven sailing;
Slanting shafts of showery light
Striking all the woodlands bright,
Green and bright, our Summer loves:
And all her woodlands moan with doves.

Purple spirts, and golden sheaves

But ah October's faded eves!
Trooping down the barren shore,
The lapwings, wheel their veering flight
The sandy ferry o'er and o'er,
Now they're black, and now they're white;
Hoarser brawl the wind-curled rills;
From out yon gap in the far hills
The hail-blast drifting white and slow
(How the fir-wood glooms below!)
Seems to come on, but thin and rare
Disperses as it hangs in air.

November clouds on every moor,
All the hills they drench and steep,
Dun sodden hills of blackened sheep;
Torrents leaping, downward sweeping,
All the rotten woodlands dripping,
Mercy house the wandering poor!

O'er curdled floods, and hills of snow
Moon-glazed, the North's keen nostrils blow.

Lo! April's coming corn exhaled to sight,
A dewy dust of thin green light.

In my winter corner musing,
Fancy thus her finger using,
Cunning finger, dipt in glooms,
Dews of light, and coloured blooms,
Gives me, round her pictured hall,
Touches of the seasons all
Tricksy Fancy, well she knows
What clouds to every scene she owes,
And shapes and tints them as she wills;
Rose-skirted on the mountains hoary,
Torn to shreds of hurrying rack,
Ranged in the north and battlemented black,
White flock of zenith, or with stormy glory
Tumbling tumultuous o'er the western hills.

Ruddier deep the embers glowing,
Rarer things is Fancy showing:
Sun-spilt in earth's embowelled night,
Drops of distilled and filtered light,
Compact to lucid stone, to shine
On emblematic breasts divine;
Green floating twilights, Shapes, the caves
Of eldest Mystery 'neath the waves;
Upward, onward, limitless,
Foaming with worlds, heaven's blue abyss:
And Fancy still my minister,
I with all the worlds confer.

Mirth for Man her berry crushes;
Love her cestus, wove of blushes,
Froth of the sea, quick bloom of fire,
Tremors, and sighs, and sweet desire,
Wears all for Man: How soft they stand
In witching grace from Fancy's hand!

Spirits of moral calm and storm,
All the ideal tribes, so shy
And complex to the Sage's eye,
'Tis Fancy gives them living form
She shapes the elemental powers,
Sylphs, and ouphes, and elves of flowers;
Faded ghosts of old renown,
By tops and turrets tumbling down;
Eyes of dragons spitting flame;
Hags of the night, and all the race
That hate and fear the Sign of Grace,
Vague phantoms drear without a name.

List, O list the sweet-lipped Sages.
I hear the Song of world-wide compass sung
I hear the Prophet's tongue
Come sounding down the ages:
Kings and their scattered levies fly
The accusing angel of his eye.

Spiritual in the depth of time,
Vivid rise the heads sublime:
Large of front, with luminous eyes,
The lords of thought and purpose rise;
The men-compellers, chief and sage,
Who shaped the world from age to age.

" Put thy shoes from off thy feet,
Reverent stand, and reverent greet, "
Fancy whispers, " dare to scan
The awful head of God in Man "
And to the wondering inner eye,
The Man of Sorrows passes by.

Every form, and every show,
All above, and all below;
With these renewed and re-combined,
Fancy feeds the widening mind.