Classic Poem

Lady, thou art very fair,
Tended well with jealous care,
Youth her gayest dress doth wear,
And life (as the warm summer day
Bends o'er a rose-bud lovingly,)
Breathes out her blessedness on thee.

Sorrow thou hast never known,
Rank and riches are thine own,
Thy light laugh's melodious tone
Chaseth ever gloom away;
What cloud can stain the stars above?
What sorrow quench thy lamp of love?

And yet — though bright the prospect be,
Search well thy spirit's depth, to see
How thou canst bear calamity —
Thou smilest, but I do not speak
Of warm affections chilled for life,
Of young hearts stabbed, as with a knife.

I do not speak of loveliness,
Blighted by unforeseen distress,
Nor of the common wretchedness,
Which withers up the cheek,
And makes the wounded heart its prey,
Draining the lifeblood, day by day.

Thy moments winged with pleasure, fly;
Thou smilest, as the hours go by —
But thunder gathers in the sky:
Wake from thy love-dream, wake, and see,
How troubled all things look, how strange,
How full of wickedness, and change.

Wild dreams of sin and strife abound,
Harsh voices mutter, with a sound
Like earthquakes moaning under ground.
Yes! lovely one, I speak to thee,
Strengthen, and arm thy patient will,
To bear the fierce extremes of ill.

It may be, that my dazzled eye
Looks falsely on futurity;
The stream may roll on peacefully;
But yet remember, how
Sunk down of old, the song, the dance,
When ruin smote the land of France.

There was more pleasure there, more mirth,
Than over all the peopled earth;
But time to a dark hour gave birth,
And all at once, it seemed as though
Beneath some troop of dancers gay,
The painted floor had given way.

So fearfully, so suddenly,
From laughter, wealth, and luxury,
Down fell that proud nobility,
As if struck by the lightning flame:
Into a gulf of blood they fell,
And in their place uprose a hell.

Bright hair in a few weary hours,
Whitened beneath its crown of flowers
In pleasures own beloved bowers,
And youth, as age became,
And life no longer life did seem,
But a delirious fever-dream.

Gore streamed, as from a fountain head,
The land was covered with the dead,
The young child with its mother bled,
Both alike innocent;
And madness mixed itself with crime —
Read thou the annals of that time.

Read, and reflect, with earnest prayer
Thy heart, for softness made, prepare,
Anguish more deep than death, to bear;
Whatever then is sent,
Thy soul will be by God endued
With meek unfailing fortitude.