Classic Poem

Along with quiet spirits of elder singers
I too shall sleep,
When falls the hushed harp from the weary fingers
In darkness deep.

There are the ghosts of those who sang preceding
Epochs and days;
All browed like gods, yet each divine brow bleeding
From thorn-mixed bays.

There Keats, there Shelley; there the figure graver
Of Wordsworth calm;
There women-singers, souls of sweeter savour
Than June-night's balm.

There the swift eyes that gleamed, the hearts that tarried
With us awhile,
Lightening for us the woes our spirits carried
With sunlike smile.

When the long days have done their task and, weary,
I too may go,
Within sepulchral graves and caverns dreary
Where cold streams flow;

Within the hollow of deathland I shall wander,
Bringing to these
Dead spirits a sudden lyric sound of yonder
Soft English breeze;

A gleam of sunlight on my brow yet lingering,
Glad it may be
To those whose harps once laughed to their high fingering,
By English sea.

One breath of rose or furze or English heather,
That they may weep:
Then, weary alike, old hearts and young together,
We all shall sleep.