Classic Poem

Oh Lady, Lady, from a heart in pain
Thou seek'st a song, perchance, to please the ear,
And move, with the sweet tumult of its strain,
The thoughtless smile, and oft as thoughtless tear.

But ah! my heart, unduteous to my will,
Breathes only sadness; like an instrument
From whose quick strings, when hands devoid of skill
Solicit joy, they murmur and lament.

Oh Lady, to a dark and sullen creed
Thou of thy youth hast given the light and bloom;
As if a bird whose wing, in golden mead,
And in the leafy city's cheerful gloom,

Held the wide air — itself should seek the cage,
And from its kindred in the peopled wood
Self-exiled, live with men in hermitage,
Sad recluse of a human solitude.

Dear Lady, by the grief of those whose love
Had birth with thee, and with thy life began,
Who gave thee all of life, save from above
That which descends, the life of God in man; —

By them, who, later born, within thy heart
The place which thou dost hold in theirs possess,
And to thy young and virgin breast impart
Something of mother's love and tenderness; —

Oh by the voice that in the myrtle glade,
Which thou hast left, sings sadly all day long,
With hope to lure thee to the thicket's shade,
Love's green retreats, and leafy haunts of song;

By him who waits with eager step to lead
Thee, like Alcestis, rescued from the tomb,
And from pale thraldom to oblivion freed,
Into the land of love and light and bloom:

Into the land, who waits to lead thee forth
Where never skies grow dark, nor swell the floods,
Nor ever smite the bleak winds of the north,
To kill the tender green of growing buds;

A land of flowers, a land of gentle streams,
The land where thou wast born — though strange to thee,
So with their sorcery have those pale dreams
Of sin and penance bound thy spirit free.

Oh, by his love who takes thee by the hand,
Who waits, with eager step, to lead thee forth
Into that land of love, whose heaven bland
Makes summer of the bleak winds of the north; —

Where poor is rich, nor sharp extremest need,
Where grief is sweet and beautiful is pain, —
Ere thou, irrevocable, to that dark creed
Art yielded, think, Oh Lady, think again!