Classic Poem

Light ! for the stars are pale; light! for the high moon wanes;
Whither now hides the sun, that all we stricken blind,
Feel not his eyes, hear not the thunders of the wind
Flung round him trumpet-toned about his clear domains?
Morn's rose along night's verge with folded wing disdains
Our twilight miserable and hopes of humankind,
Hardly we catch its breath: is the great sun less kind,
Than falling stars, frail moons, than night's cloud hurricanes?

Darkling we dwindle deathward, and our dying sight
Strains back to pierce the living gloom; ere night be done
We pass from night to night; our sons shall see the light,
Children of us shall laugh to welcome the free sun;
Yet pity for the poor dead must mar their fair joy won,—
That all we died too soon, passing from night to night.