Classic Poem

Where the halls with splendour glow,
Where the gorgeous fountains throw
Fullest flood,
There a chronicler of time,
Wrapp'd in mystery sublime,
Mutely stood.

Like the finger on the wall
That Belshazzar's festival
Dash'd with dread,
Stern it bore the doom of fate,
While the crowd with joy elate
Check'd their tread.

Fix'd as adamantine chain,
Wilt thou never move again?
Then methought an inward strain
Murmur'd low,
" Blind with pomp or folly's chase
Call the king! He can trace
The true answer in my face,
He doth know.

" When he struggleth long and sore,
When he links to earth no more
Hate or love,
When his eye hath lost its light,
When his hands grow stiff and white,
Mine shall move.

" When his crown availeth not,
And the death-hues blear and blot
Brow and cheek,
When his tongue no more can frame
Vaunt of power or moan of shame,
Mine shall speak.

" I shall speak — I shall move,
While his fickle courtiers rove
Far away;
With my doom of fate and fear
For the new-made monarch's ear
I shall stay. "

Slow the murmur in the breast
Died away, and there at rest,
Still and stern,
Stood that monitor sublime,
Teaching truths that power and prime
Shrink to learn.