Classic Poem

Dim wastes of sea to north and south and west,
Wind-wimpled stretches, steel-gray ere the dawn
Mingled afar with misty, dove-winged skies
That brood and melt and mix until the eye
Knows not where waters end or skies begin.
But in the east, ah, there the wonder is!
High up, the heavens glimmer and grow pale
In awe prophetic of the coming king;
Beneath, for leagues along the watery rim,
A river runs in color like rich wine,
As though the secret cellars of old Spain
Were rifled, and a million vats outpoured.

Upon its farther bank a forest stands
Distinct and dark against the paling sky.
Cloud trees as gloomy as that fabled wood
Where strayed of eld the dismal Florentine.
Deep in such shady sadness one might deem
Old Saturn hid, downcast and desolate,
Dreaming of vengeance 'gainst the traitor gods.
What mighty trunks uplift their branches there,
Waving a night before the gates of Morn!
Great oaks and elms, dense-leaved and vine-o'ergrown,
In random shapes of wildest symmetry.

Now brighter glows the sky; the river runs
A flood of molten sapphire and of sard.
Bright patches fleck the ghostly wood, where flit
Gay butterflies, those living leaves that fall
And flutter from the trees of Paradise.
The river turns to fire, and suddenly,
From trunk to top, through all its gloomy deeps,
The forest blazes forth and burns to naught.

And lo, as new as on the primal morn,
The golden glory of the King of Dawn!