Classic Poem

The cloud is on the monarch's soul,
Foreshadower of his future doom;
So mists, before the thunders roll,
Come down and wrap the hill in gloom—

Go, call the gentle Bethlemite,
And bid him wake his sweetest lay,
Perchance that music, pure and light,
May drive the threatening fiend away.

The shepherd boy has brought his lute,
He sings, he strikes the pliant chords!
Each ear is caught, each lip hangs mute,
On the sweet air, the wondrous words.

He stays his hand, the impassion'd strain
Along the lofty palace dies;
The listening courtiers breathe again,
The cloud has left the monarch's eyes.

Ah, no! the measure died not all—
The echoes of that golden rhyme
Are ringing on, from fall to fall,
For ever down the stream of time.

At matin hour, in vespers low,
They ring, they ring, those silver bells,
For praise, for plaint, for joy or woe,
Whene'er our strain of worship swells.

The fair cathedral's arches grand,
Her marble saints with lifted palms,
Her carven pillars ever stand,
Wrapt in a dream of rolling psalms.

The grey old walls beneath the yew,
With modest porch, and taper spire,
Have ripen'd to their music too,
Rung from the clamorous village choir.

When wakeful men, with ears unstopp'd,
Through weary hours have told each sound
That broke upon the dark, then dropp'd
Into the pulseless silence round.

While the strain'd eye impatient longs
For the first throb of breaking light,
What snatches of those heavenly songs
Have come to him at dead of night?

Some grand Laudate's lofty roll,
Some tender penitential wail,
Have made a music in his soul,
Sweeter than any nightingale.

Come, blessed Psalms! when mists of sin
Over my soul beclouded lie,
Pierce through the wide world's strife and din,
And bid the evil spirit fly.

Come, blessed Psalms! when weak and lone
My heart breaks down, and finds no aid,
And let me find in your deep tone
Some voice of comfort ready made.

For who shall find, in pain or loss,
Words of such sweet, sustaining power,
As those that hung about the Cross,
And soothed my Saviour's dying hour?