Classic Poem

All, all had long-time gone;
On Earth's wide bound I wandered lone,
By sweeping waves, whose glittering tides
Once safely o'er, no sailor rides—
When out of that soft greensward shore
I saw a vessel steer once more,
And at her prow a tall, straight form;
'T was Margaret, poised so high above Earth's storm!

Simple and sweet she surely is
As opening dawn or day's last look;
Within her heart, within her eyes,
Meet all the charms of mead and brook,
When rings amid the open fields
That dear, delightful strain along—
Great Nature's heart in little birds,
Piping their unmaterial song.

Late in the deep and dying night,
When sounds are still, and frozen the moor,
There echoes, far from human plight,
The cottage curs' unceasing roar;
Then, in that strange funereal pall
That veils the Earth and hides the skies,
I seem to hear a note that falls
Sweeter than tidings of surprise.

I need not ask—I do not stay;
'T is Margaret's voice—no other sound
Could ever wake a rondelai.
Within this heart by Sorrow bound.

“Wanderer of pain! I am a truth to be
For those I stoop to, mercy to implore;
A certain lighthouse on Earth's murky shore;
O God! I kneel and ask that those in me
May trust their heart's best love implicitly—
Trust and believe—see in my soul their own,
As one sweet viol clears another's tone.”

So from the drooping skies
The quicker lightning flies,
And makes our shadowed hearts bright 'neath those lovely eyes.
For whom now would you raise the tower of Scorn?
Now when yon azure distances, upborne
In their far-shadowed folds of ruby light,
Pale and grow gloomy as the wondrous Night
Pours forth her stream of stars o'er Heaven's deep sea,
And mocks our wandering, far Futurity.