Classic Poem

A rain-gushed night: the reckless wind has swept
Over the town a cloud with rain-drops deep.
And all the little hamlet sinks away
In a deep slough of sleep.

Dark entrances are silent: pelting rain
Beats down on them, and houses here and there
On shifting bases, like to be swept away,
Loom with a blackening stare.

Is there an orphan whom men of kindly heart
Forgot to give a cloak to keep him warm?
E'en so the bending rafters, nestling close,
Creak softly in the storm.

As if they thought and conjured in their brain
Images of evil, murmurless;
Do they awaken to their very bones
And challenge all to stress?

Sleepers in darkness mouth a curse in dreams
Against the morrow and the morrow. Rest
Eternal mendicants, see this good dream—
A race with yoke oppressed.

Between the cracks the howling wind breaks through,
Making the blood to freeze. Ah me! who knows
But that the curse of a lost guiltless brother
Is wrapt there in its throes?

No more in heaven beams a single star,
No spark of light, no ray bold through the air;
Save where a lonely lattice still bears light—
A jew at his Midnight Prayer.