Classic Poem

He spoke no word the world shall hear,
And now he early sleeps,
While o'er him watch his pine-trees dear,
That sigh while evening weeps.

Yet was he poet, grander far
Than many a one whose name
Shines from its eminence, a star,
Whose lustre is called fame.

For his soul was a mirror, bright
As any placid lake,
Wherein all fair things take delight
Their images to make.

His heart was full of budding thought
That rarely bloomed in speech;
And rich dreams his fine fancy wrought,
That words could never reach.

The evening landscape was to him
More than the earth and sky;
He saw its mystic meanings dim,
And read its poetry.

There was between his soul and all
Of true, and good, and fair,
A sympathy that heard their call,
And spelled their lessons rare.

The language of the storm that roared,
And swept the northern plain,
Or breeze, whose gentle voice was lowered
To concord with the rain, —

Both were to him a speechless joy,
That melted into tears;
A pleasure time could not destroy,
Worn deeper by the years.

Long hours he lay upon the leaves
Where branched the trees o'erhead,
Binding his musings into sheaves,
By memory garnered.

The flecking sunshine patched the ground,
The wind soughed through the pine,
Until, lapped in the swathing sound,
He walked in dreams divine.

No book shall bear his name adown,
To bless the world to be;
But in some fair land he is known,
A prince of minstrelsy.

For many a tongue that here was tied
Finds sweetest utterance there;
And thoughts that here unspoken died
Bloom in that sunnier air.