Classic Poem

The temple falls to ruin on the cape,
And utter sleep has mingled with the mold
The marble gods and paladins of old,—
Locked in the prison whence is no escape.
Sometimes the lonely herdsman drives his kine
To the clear lake, and wakes the ancient pain,
With the sad piping of an old refrain,—
Clear-cut against the far horizon-line;
The kindly Earth guards well its old regime
And each Spring, vainly eloquent, doth dower
The broken pillar with a new-born flower:
But man, unheedful of his father's dream,
Fears not to hear each night, unchangingly,
The vast, eternal sorrow of the sea.