Classic Poem

How still it is! Between me and the sea,
Between me and far Etna's snowy slope,
The midges in the sunlight idly move,
As if they had of life but drowsy hope.
No cock crows, not a bird or wind is singing
About this eaglet town whose eyrie hangs
Upon a high cliff; not a bell is ringing
From church or convent tower
The sleepy hour;
And not a voice of afternoon comes bringing
Amid these ruins joy, or griefs that lower.

Through the rent walls and arches where I lie
With silent broken columns basking round,
Is framed as radiant a scene as eye
May hope to dwell on; yet my heart unbound
Is not enthralled—but to the voiceless vision
Of villa, castle, sky and sea is cold.
And though their beauties blend with calm Elysian,
Since the bright sunlight's fall
Is over all,
My thoughts blend not, but brood with indecision
That seems all aspiration to appal.

And what is it that so can trouble us
Mid scenes so fair and peaceful? Is it, here,
Time's still destruction striking to the soul
The certainty that death is ever near?
Once there were plaudits where this silence passes,
Once there was glory where these ruins reign,
Once Greece and Rome sat thralled where now the grasses
Alone are audience
Of the intense
Lone tragedy that year on year amasses;
Is fate's strange power upon us so immense?

Or is it that too-beautiful sometimes
Will make us sad as too-imperfect can?
That the Ideal in full bodiment
But leaves more bleak the wonted life of man?
To Etna, poet of the azure heaven,
King of myth-makers does this scene belong;
But unto us of lowly mortal heaven,
To us who scarce can hope
For greater scope
On earth than is comprised in seven times seven,
Must not a grandeur less immortal ope?

Aye, and more intimately kin to us!
So from snow-summit and the sapphire sea,
From plain and promontory do I turn,
And distances that dream majestically,
To yon bare ledge of rock, where cactus-pendants
In homely and grotesque confusion cling,
As to our niches we, who know transcendence
Of all sad earth forbids
Our longing lids
But makes us, oft, dissatisfied attendants
On Toil and Duty, life's stern Caryatids.