Classic Poem

Alas, our harp of harps! the instrument
On whose fine strings the nymph Parnassus-bred
Played ever most melodiously, is rent,
And all the music fled.

Alas, our torch of truth! the lofty light
That yet a tender household radiance cast,
And made the cottage as the palace bright,
Is blotted out at last.

Alas, the sweet pure life, that ripened still
To holier thought and more benignant grace,
Hath spread its wings, and who is left to fill
The dear and empty place?

How poor thou art, O bleak Atlantic coast!
How barren all thy hills, my mother-land!
Where now amid the nations is thy boast,
And where thy Delphic band?

Of that bright group who sang amid thy wheat,
And cheered thy reapers lest their brown arms tire,
Whom ermined Europe raised a hand to greet,
As princes of the lyre,

The first have fallen, and the others wait,
The snow of years on each beloved head,
With weary feet before the sunset gate
That opens toward the Dead.

And who abides to sing away our pain,
As these our bards we carry to their rest?
We need thy comfort for the tears that rain,
O poet, on thy breast.

It is our earth, where prophet steps grow few,
For which we weep, and not, O harper gray,
For thee, who caroled from the morning dew
To noontide of the day,

Nor left thy task when twilight down the wall
Stole silently in shadowy flakes and bars,
And whose clear tones, while night enfolded all,
Sang on beneath the stars.

The knights and dames had bent their heads to list,
The serving-maids were hearkening from the stair,
And little childish faces, mother-kissed,
Had flocked about thy chair,

When ceased thy fingers in the strings to weave,
O'er thine anointed sight the eyelids fell;
And thou wert sleeping, who from dawn to eve
Hadst wrought so wondrous well.

O gentle minstrel, may thy rest be deep
And tranquil, as thy working-tide was long.
Our lonely hearts will grudge thee not thy sleep,
Who grudged us not thy song.