Classic Poem

Like spirits yet unborn to life's desire,
In the dark void of nothingness and night,
These hidden sparks of elemental fire,
Through the long gloom of ages wait the light.

Sealed in primeval adamant, whose mass
Impervious to each ray that might illume,
Lets not one gleam of future glory pass,
To light the jewel darkling in its tomb.

Till lo! the earthquake shock, the rocks divide,
The prisoned beams leap forth to meet the day,
And, the dense veil of matter rent aside,
A flashing soul of light illumes the clay!

Light, not in white serenity combined;
But in all hues of broken radiance shown,
Its seven-fold shaft of mystic fire untwined,
To gleam in colour from each prism of stone.

The diamond, in its restless rainbow blaze,
With essence of auroral lightnings filled,
The burning ruby in whose core of rays
The crimson of the sunset is distilled

Translucent emerald, whose vivid beam,
Hath caught from nature's vegetative powers
Such planetary radiance as we deem,
This earth may send to other worlds than ours;

Pure sapphire, that has drunk the zenith blue,
And holds all heaven within its crystal heart,
And topaz, whose clear cup of amber dew,
A golden shaft of sunlight plays athwart;

Dim opal, veiled in such prismatic haze,
As hovers o'er the cataract's crown of mist;
Pale turquoise blue, sea-green of chrysoprase,
And storm-cloud gleams of purple amethyst;

Pearls, sad as frozen tears upon a shroud,
And pallid as the spectre moon by day,
Faint moonstone, haloed like a shimmering cloud,
With subtlest tenderness of tint and ray;

Each thrills to meet the sun 'neath heav'n's blue roof,
Waked from millennial trance in rock-bound cell,
To sift the light, and weave a starry woof
Of the celestial flame it loves so well.