Classic Poem

A soul alight with purest flame of love,
A heart aglow with sweetest charity,
A mind all filled — and this is rarity —
With even balanced thoughts, his eyes above,
Yet saw the earth in its dread verity;
For is't not true that some who Heaven see
Cast down no looks upon the shadows of
This shadowed world? A serpent, yet a dove,
He read the world and, seeking, found the clue
To all the secrets of our troubled time,
And from the past drew other secrets down;
He placed, 'mid Dante's bays, a diamond true
Of purest water; and in every clime
Prayers of God's poor add gems to his bright crown.