Classic Poem

Thou last sweet Beam of sunny day,
Thou latest friend,
Before thy light I bend,
Too heavy earth to form thy shining way;
Thou last link of the golden chain,
Thou Star amid these nights of misty rain;
Bright weather for us all,
How joyful we are thrall.
How wert thou sent so late,
How was thy voice so mute,
How many days did fate,
Silence thy liquid lute?

Thou beacon Fire
That o'er the unsounded deep,
By thy warm heart's desire,
Lightest the harbor's steep,
Shed from thy eye the warning flame,
Ere silence writes in tears the unheeded name.
So many come and go
Like a swift Fountain's flow,
Glancing reflections of the passing scene,
The mimicries of spheres, whose Fates are all;
The woods, the clouds, blue sky, and lawny green,
One instant fixed, then nothing we can call,
And o'er the unspeaking Fall.

Weep not,—I see thine eyes
Are filled with tears,
Weep not,—for those revolving Memories
Like autumn leaves, the years
Whirl in the unvexed skies,
And dim thy fears.
For in the illimitable hand of Time,
Who sweeps forever in vast silence, the sublime
Slow-moving history of Man,
Sure winnoweth that broad fan.

Thou angel form,
Thou calm and sunny day,
Why in this storm
Pursuest thou thy way,
While we, pale Phantoms crowd around thy car,
And catch a faint complexion from thy star.
We do remember thee,
For in the radiant Past had we some light,
Thy voice reveals the key
That made the music bright,
Yet linger not so long amid our graves,
And fear the rocks that tear the angry waves.

Thou vase of Beauty,
Carved in high relief
With shapes of Gods, and forms
That best Belief
Gave to some Races towering o'er,
All the low dwellers on this misty shore,
Shall we not live, while Thou resolv'st to bear,
Thy cold, dull crown of Grief, and proudly wear
Garments of autumn foliage for an hour,
Having immortal Beauty for thy dower.