Classic Poem

Long had they dwelt within one breathless cell,
Two souls, by some mad Sycorax confined;
But, oh! the unmeant mercy of that spell
Which turned those arms to marble, while entwined
In all the passionate wo of tenderness,
And to the unknown depths of earth consigned, —
These radiant forms of Beauty's rare excess,
This monument of Love's own loveliness!

Unchronicled, the centuries rolled on,
And groves grew ancient on the prison-hill;
And men forgot their parent tongues anon,
And spoke a different language, as a rill
Wearing another channel from its source,
Makes a new song accordant with its course.
But suddenly the unexpectant sun
Beheld the swarthy labourers employ
Upon that hill their rude exhuming art,
Like shadowy hopes at some dull, ancient heart,
To free the spirit of long buried joy.
And now they grappled with the stubborn rocks,
Breaking the antique seals which time had set
Upon the earth's deep treasury, that locks
Within its inmost wards such marts as yet
The busy masons of the poet's brain
Have builded not. Anon the toiling ox
Dragged the white quarry to the peopled plain,
And Beauty's soul lay sepulchred unknown!
The crowd discerned it not, till there came one
Who heard the passionate breathings in the stone,
The wordless music of Love's overflow;
Who heard and pitied, and, like Prospero,
Released the spirits from their living grave;
And when the breathless world beheld them — lo.
The soul of purity, around, above,
Hung in the tremulous air like heaven's own dove;
And Fame pronounced the name of him who gave
A marble immortality to Love!