Classic Poem

By day, the city's noise and blight
Usurp the spirit's throne;
The silence of the truthful night
Restores it to its own.

The enginery of toil is still,
Remote are grief and wars;
Yet vocal is the quiet hill
Beneath the throng of stars.

Not here shall Sorrow come to weep;
Here pilgrim feet rejoice.
Not here the great departed sleep,
Each is a living voice.

Elsewhere, in pride of turf or tomb,
Their welcome dust was laid;
But stranger to such solemn gloom
This sacred Colonnade.

Here twice a hundred columns rise
Far-seen, a beacon bold, —
Far-seeing, like the great and wise
Whose memory they hold.

In homage to this fane's renown
The bards of many a clime
Shall come, to crown the laurel's crown
With amaranthine rhyme.

Not saints nor demigods we greet,
But kindred of our sod,
Who, with true eyes and faithful feet,
Our course of nature trod.

I wander in the silver night
Along this Path of Fame,
And catch some voice of cheer or might
At every cherished name.

From out the Poets' Corner rings
Full many a voice of Pan,
While Emerson supremely sings
The nobleness of Man.

Here, while the world shall vainly seek
A common human speech,
Beauty clairvoyantly shall speak
What Sorrow cannot teach.

Here Science tells more wondrous tales
Than Fancy ever saw,
And shows behind a hundred veils
The friendliness of Law.

What brooding spirits haunt the place,
To guide the steps that stray,
To hail our service to the race,
Or shame our recreant day!

I wander onward to the site
Where stand the names of State,
And view the first that all men write
When they record the great.

I greet his calm face with a thrill;
His voice sounds from above —
The Father's, to whose mighty will
We owe the land we love:

" The world is calling: will ye lag,
Or hearken to your soul?
We fixed the stars upon the flag
To make the sky your goal.

" When Greed has laid its vulgar hand
Upon the Ark we bore,
Come, faithful of our patient land,
And here your faith restore.

" The freedom that we planned for all
Let no false thought dethrone:
Who puts his neighbor's faith in thrall
Is traitor to his own.

" What we for Fortune plucked from Fate,
We summon you to save —
You who would keep your country great,
Yourselves be true and brave. "

O ye, that gladly paid the price
That made your names renowned,
The precincts of your sacrifice
Are our most holy ground.