Classic Poem

A small brook gushed on stones hard by,
Waste-lorn it babbled; alone was I,
Dawn's ever-changing alchemy
Low in the eastern sky.

Ghost that I was, by dream waylaid,
Benighted, and yet unafraid,
I sat, in those brief hours, long-lost,
And communed with the sea.

Faint, o'er its shingly murmuring,
The secret songs I had hoped to sing —
When I on earth was sojourning —
Of which poor words, alas, can bring
Only a deadened echoing
Of what they meant to me —
Rose in my throat; and poured their dew —
A hymn of praise — my being through;
Shed peace on a mind that never knew
Peace in that mind could be.

Only a soundless voice was I,
Yet sweeter that than man can hear
When, latticed in by moonbeams clear,
The bird of darkness to its fere
Tells out love's mystery.

No listener there — a dream; but ne'er
Sang happier heart in heaven fair
To lyre or psaltery. . . .

Oh, futile vanity to mourn
What the day's waking leaves forlorn!
Doth not earth's strange and lovely mean
Only, " Come, see, O son of man,
All that you hope, the nought you can,
The glory that might have been? "