Classic Poem

She move to measures of ethereal song
Along the starry corridors of heaven;
Her tresses float the moon's white beams among,
And on the golden mists of dawn are driven.

Through woodland ways, o'er lake and stream, she glides,
On mountain-peak, in dim, mysterious dell;
She rocks in sea-shell boat on tropic tides,
Or sleeps within some field-born floweret's bell.

Her voice is heard in Autumn's gusty sigh,
When Summer's tender folk are perishing;
She shouts afar with Winter's boisterous cry,
And hails with earliest birds the birth of Spring.

In some white-pillared temple of the past
She sits with hero shades of deathless name,
With solemn eye and brow of tragic cast,
Refines the blood-stains from the book of Fame.

Or in the East, with feudal clang and sheen,
Where Murder bears the cross for Jesus' sake,
She rolls a purple mist before the scene
And bids phantasmal shapes of splendor wake.

She consecrates the blood in battle shed,
If tyrants fall or Liberty arise;
She flings a pall of glory o'er the dead,
Streaked with the crimson of her sunset skies.

She comes to us in hours of bleakest care,
Unseen till time has wiped away our tears;
Then trace we her benignant presence there
In memory, sadly sweeter through the years.

Deep-veiled she stands with Grief beside the tomb;
Yet, when the first wild agony has fled,
She sheds a hallowed radiance through the gloom,
And makes all-perfect the imperfect dead.

Hers is the holy influence of home,—
The love that lingers latest in the breast,—
Whatever hopes may fail, or sorrows come,
The heart's one friend, the calmest, surest, best.

From wilful childhood, pattering through the rain
To seek the sun-bow's root behind the hill,
To manhood's sterner strivings, not less vain,
The charm is hers that gilds ambition still.

She looks upon us through Love's lucid eyes,
And well for him who knows and holds her fast;
For him life's perfect purpose never dies,
And loveliness and love are never past.

Lost child of Heaven, she wanders everywhere,
And where she goes transforms the sordid Real,
Or bursts the bonds of beauty hiding there;
And moulds of basest clay the pure Ideal.