Classic Poem

As one who goes from holding converse sweet
In cloistered walls with great ones of the past,
And steps, enwrapt in visions high and vast,
To meet his fellows in the noisy street;
So we, descending from the mountain's height,
Feel strange discordance in the world below.
Is this the calm that there enchanted so?
It cannot be that we beheld aright.
But courage! not for ever on the mount;
Far oftener in the valley must we move;
The things that lie about us learn to love,
And for the work allotted us account;
Content if, now and then, we track above
The tumbling waters to their placid fount.