Classic Poem

There are two starry gates, like Morn and Even,
Flung back along the thresholds of a plain,
Where Earth looks out upon the watchful Heaven,
And Heaven looks in upon the Earth again.

One lifts its pillars from a sea of flowers,
And pours along the lands a flood of light:
The other wraps in clouds its iron towers,
While half the world around is lost in Night.

White-robed and innocent, in linked bands
Young children crowd the first, with dreamy eyes,
And pluck the lilies there with eager hands,
The sole surviving blooms of Paradise.

Youth leads them down the path, but soon departs:
And Manhood beckons to its stern estate;
Save when the angels fold them to their hearts,
And bear them swiftly through the iron gate.

Some urge their chariots to the distant goals;
Some wallow in the mire of sensual things;
And some preserve the whiteness of their souls,
And walk beneath theshade of angels' wings.

The monarch feasts in purple robe and crown;
The ragged beggar starves for want of bread;
And laurelled conquerors reap their red renown,
While widows weep, and orphans wail the dead.

But all in turn are borne across the plain,
Or swift or slow, by some resistless fate,
With which they strive from year to year — in vain,
Impelled for ever towards the shadowy gate.

Some in their youth, while Hope still waves her torch,
And some in age, when locks are thin and white,
Groping their way along the cloudy porch,
Until they vanish in the yawning night

All vanish there, and are replaced again
By myriads more, that tread the paths they trod;
And God looks down upon that host of men,
But few of all the host look up again to God!