Classic Poem

Friend of the thoughtful mind and gentle heart,
Beneath the citron-tree—
Deep calling to my soul's profounder deep—
I hear the Mexique Sea.

White through the night the spectral surf rides in,
Along the spectral sands,
And all the air vibrates, as if from harps
Touched by phantasmal hands.

Bright in the moon the red pomegranate-flowers
Lean to the yucca's bells,
While with her chrism of dew sad Midnight fills
The milk-white asphodels.

Watching all night—as I have done before—
I count the stars that set,
Each writing on my soul some memory deep
Of pleasure or regret;

Till, wild with heart-break, toward the east I turn,
Waiting for dawn of day;
And chanting sea, and asphodel, and star,
Are faded, all, away.

Only within my trembling hands I hold
These bright weeds from the sea—
Flounce, feather, ribbon, crimson, green, and gold—
Brought unto me by thee.

Fair bloom the flowers beneath these northern skies,
Pure shine the stars by night,
And grandly sing the grand Atlantic waves
In thunder-throated might:

Yet, as the sea-shell in her chambers keeps
The murmur of the sea,
So the deep echoing memories of my home
Will not depart from me.

Prone on the page they lie, these gentle things,
As I have seen them cast
Like a drowned woman's hair along the sands
When storms were overpast;

Prone, like the heart's affections, cast ashore
In Sorrow's storm and blight.
Would they could die, like sea-weed! Bear with me,
But I must weep to-night.

Tell me, again, of summer fairer made
By spring's precursing plough;
Of joyful reapers gathering tear-sown sheaves;
Talk to me—will you?—now.