Classic Poem

Strange is the influence that clings
To treasured tokens of the past,
And gives to most familiar things
Enchantments that shall hold us fast.

A splinter, any trifle small
From Shakespeare's house, has more, to-day,
Of deep suggestiveness than all
His best biographers can say.

With what devout idolatry,
What holy love, what tender care,
The mourning mother guards for aye
A tress of her dead darling's hair!

A maiden takes her jewel box
To while an idle hour away;
Or choose a bauble for her locks,
Humming the while some carol gay,

A ring, or faded violet—
Some lover's gift in earlier years—
Touches the spring of love's regret,
And softens all her soul to tears!

And thus, as on this simple leaf,
This rainy night, I muse and pore,
I hear the thunder of the chief
Of all the cataracts that roar!

I see the sheeted splendors glance,
Bathed in the warm, prismatic light,
And foam-bows that dissolve or dance,
Elf-Blondins, up and down the height!

What man may holier baptism boast,
Though clothed in all the pomp of earth,
Than that affusion most august,
That solemnized this nursling's birth,

Which, clinging to the fostering side
Of that great wall, rejoiced and grew,
And trembled at the tumbling tide,
Drenched in its glories and its dew?

For this I hold the trifle dear,
For this I ponder on it long,
And guard it safely, year by year,
And weave its tendrils in my song.