Classic Poem

What holds thy dreamy eyes in thrall?
A sombre picture on the wall;
A sombre picture, weird and cold,
That dims the daylight's morning gold.

A grass-grown rampart, lifting high
Its reedy fringe against the sky;
Half lost in its o'ershadowing gloom,
The semblance of a moldering tomb;
Upon the tablet, side by side,
In pomp of old heraldic pride,
Two sculptured figures lying stark
And dumb within the glimmering dark;
A raven on the moldering tomb;
An owlet flitting through the gloom;
A cold, white, wandering moon, that seems
The ghost of long-forgotten dreams;
In the high rampart an old door,
Where night winds enter: nothing more.
Why doth it hold thine eyes in thrall,
This sombre picture on the wall,
That dims the daylight's glad return,
And shrineth darkness like an urn?

Is there within thy heart a grave
O'er which the winds of memory wave,
Where, sepulchred in marble pride,
Thy dead hopes slumber, side by side,
Lost to the future's dawning light,
And shrined in immemorial night?

Ah! never hope of thine shall sleep
Within oblivion's donjon-keep.
Thy dreams were born to soar afar
Beyond the morning's purple star;
Thy loyal heart shall re-create
From loss and wrong a loftier fate;
Thy own deep heart of love illume
Thy life with love's immortal bloom.
On thy white brow, absolved from blame,
A shining stone, with a new name,
Shall flood the dark with living flame;
Thy life, a perfume and a prayer,
With mystic fragrance fill the air,
And all thy buried hopes shall rise
Transfigured into destinies.