Classic Poem

I.

Lonely stream of rushing water,
 From the rock that gave thee birth,
Hast thou fallen, O Naiad's daughter!
 Mingling with the common earth?
Shall Carrara's snowy marble
 Never more thy waves inurn;
That with wild and plaintive warble,
 By their broken temple mourn?

II.

Nor thy dolphins lying shattered,
 Fling their columns up again,
That in radiant glory scattered,
 Fell to the earth a jewelled rain
Must the bending beeches only,
 Veil thy desolate decay,
Spreading solemnly and lonely
 O'er thy waters, dark as they?

III.

Pallid Autumn-leaves are lying
 On thy hollow marble tomb,
And the willows round it sighing,
 Wave their bannerets of gloom.
Still thou flowest ever, ever—
 Like a loving heart that gives
Smiles and blessings, though it never
 Meeteth smile from one who live

IV.

Roughest rocks to polished beauty
 Changing as thou flowest on;
Such the Poet's heaven-taught duty,
 Mid the stony-hearted throng!
Thus thy voice to me hath spoken,
 Falling, falling from on high,
As a chord in music, broken
 By a gently-murmured sigh.

V.

Ah! what sad yet glorious vision
 Of my youth thy scenes unroll,
When I felt the Poet's mission
 Kindling first within my soul;
When the passion and the glory
 Of the far-off future years,
Shone in radiant light before me,
 Through the present dimm'd by tears.

VI.

Can thy stream recall the shadow
 Of the spirit-haunted boy,
Who in sunlight, through the meadow,
 Roamed in deep and woundrous joy?
Yet bright memory still reaches,
 All athwart thy glistening beams,
Where, beneath the shading beeches,
 Lay the sunny child of dreams;

VII.

Weaving fancies bright as morning,
 With its purple and its gold;
Strong to trample down earth's scorning
 With the faith of men of old.
Ready life itself to render
 At the shrine to which he bowed,
Knowing not the transient splendour
 Gilded but the tempest-cloud.

VIII.

On my heart was still'd the laughter,
 Cold the clay around the dead,
When I came in years long after
 Here to rest my weary head.
Waked the sad tears fast and warm,
 Once again the ancient place,
Till, like droppings of the storm,
 They fell heavy on thy face.

IX.

Human voice was none to hear me
 In that silence of the tomb;
But thy waters, sobbing near me,
 Seemed responsive to the gloom;
And I flung my thoughts all idly
 On thy current in a dream,
Like the pale leaves scattered widely
 On thy autumn-drifted stream.

X.

Yet 'twas in that mournful hour
 Rose the spirit's mighty words;
Never soul could know its power
 Until sorrow swept the chords—
Blended with each solemn feature
 Of the lonely scenes I trod,
For the sacred love of Nature
 Is the Poet's hymn to God.

XI.

Did He hear the words imploring
 Of a strong heard tempest-riven?
Did the tears of sorrow pouring
 Rise like incense up to Heaven?
Ah! the heart that mutely prayeth
 From the ashes of the past,
Finds the strength that ever stayeth,
 Of the Holy, round it cast!

XII.

But the leaf in winter fadeth,
 And the cygnet drops her plumes:
Time in passing ever shadeth
 Human life in deeper glooms;
So, perchance, with white hair streaming,
 In my age to thee I'll turn—
Muse on life, with softened dreaming,
 By thy broken marble urn.

XIII.

While thy murmuring waters falling
 Drop by drop upon the plain,
Seem like spirit-voices calling—
 Spirit-voices not in vain;
For life's fleeting course they teach me,
 With life's endless source on high,
Past and future thus may reach me,
 While I learn from thee to die.

XIV.

O stream! hath thy lonely torrent
 Many ages yet to run?
O life! will thy mournful current
 See many a setting sun?
I know not; but both are passing
 From the sunlight into gloom—
Yet the light we left will meet us
 Once again beyond the tomb!