Classic Poem

See , when a fireship in mid ocean blazes
Lone on the battlefields a swimmer stands,
Looks for a help, and findeth none, and raises
High for a moment melancholy hands;

Then the sad ship, to her own funeral flaring,
Holds him no longer in her arms, for he
Simple and strong and desolate and daring
Leaps to the great embraces of the sea.

So when around me for my soul's affrighting,
Madly red-litten of the woe within,
Faces of men and deeds of their delighting
Stare in a lurid cruelty of sin,

Thus as I weary me and long and languish,
Nowise availing from that pain to part,—
Desperate tides of the whole world's anguish
Forced through the channels of a single heart,—

Then let me feel how infinite around me
Floats the eternal peace that is to be,
Rush from the demons, for my King has found me,
Leap from the universe and plunge in Thee!