Classic Poem

Through all the world's dark Lenten days
Some Easter songs keep ringing,
No age so hopeless but its ways
Are cheered by distant singing,

No time so wintry but it keeps
Some seeds of bloom and brightness;
No chaff so worthless but there sleeps
Some good grain in its lightness,

No spirit in such hopeless gloom
That through the walls of feeling
God's sunlight to its darkest room
Comes not, swift moments, stealing.

These shadowy, purple days of Lent,
So steeped in present sorrow,
Have promise full, of soul-content
On Easter's glorious morrow;

Have presage that mankind shall wake,
When earth's day-dream is ended,
In lands where cloud and stream and lake
In perfect grace are blended.

They keep a golden silence still,
'Tis true, that saints or sages
Shall never penetrate until
The sunset of the ages,

But through all sombre Lenten-tides
Such hopeful strains keep ringing,
Our hearts are sure that somewhere hides
A world of quenchless singing.