Classic Poem

I have stood in forests, so old and vast,
They seemed a part of those ages past,
When the Eden freshness and youth of earth
Gave to her children a giant birth.
I have looked far up from the forest floor,
To the height of the oak, and the sycamore;
To the dark green maple, and graceful elm,
Monarchs all of that quiet realm —
Up through those branches far and dim,
To the dome, where many a giant limb,
Braced by the twisting and snake-like vine,
Shuts out the rains and the fair sunshine.

Gray leaden shadows forever brood
At the feet of that silent multitude;
And through the distant and dim arcades
The silent deer glance by like shades;
And sometimes the shout of the watching owl,
Or the wolf abroad in his midnight prowl,
Or the panther's cry o'er his feast of blood,
Startle the depths of the solitude.

But there are sounds of a wilder hour,
When the tempest weareth his robe of power!
When the rushing wind, with his battle shout,
And the storm and the driving rain are out!
Often the bolts of lightning fall,
Striking a king in his palace hall,
Scathing those branches whose lofty pride
Have the wrath of a thousand years defied,
And leaving a blacken'd and lonely stem,
Where once was a verdant diadem.

I have stood in caverns, where never came
A ray of light, save the torches' flame,
As they gleamed on the walls with their glittering spars,
And the arching roof with its mimic stars,
Yet leaving still a spell of gloom
Within each lofty and dreamlike room.
I have journey'd onwards, for darken'd miles,
Through slippery passways and narrow aisles;
And have heard the plash on the sullen stone,
Of the drops of damp, falling, one by one,
Down from the roof and the slimy walls
Of those deserted and mystic halls.

I have seen the bones that the sweeping waves
Flung in those caverns — eternal graves;
When the flood was loosed o'er the destined earth,
And the arc lay lone on a sea of dearth.
I have looked with wondering and awe-struck eyes
On the wrecks of departed centuries;
On giant limbs, which in memory seem
Disordered parts of a ghastly dream.
Ay! there they lie, in those chambers wan!
Creatures whose memory hath passed from man;
Whose very place in the chain of earth,
Hath been filled up by a newer birth.