Classic Poem

A gentle eve! the earth and air,
As fainting from the noontide glare,
Are stealing slowly from the light,
Beneath the raven wings of night;
Yet see beyond their half-shut fold
One long, bright lance of burning gold;
And glancing in the yellow ray,
The banners of retreating day.
I hear the trembling ripples creep
Along the bosom of the deep;
As ocean curls its silver sheet,
To kiss the zephyr's flying feet.

—Yes, all is fair, and I could deem
That truth was in the ancient's dream—
Hark! was there not a voice that came,
From yonder rolling orbs of flame,
Soft stealing with its solemn chime,
Through all the din of earth and time?

—There may be moments when the sound
We hear not, though 't is ever round—
The anthem of the ringing spheres,
Can stir the sense of mortal ears.
The infant sleeps and smiles—who knows
What music lulls his light repose?
The martyr smiles while demons drain
The life-blood from the shrinking vein,
The flame may scorch, the steel may tear,
The quivering source of life lie bare;
Why starts he from his bed of fire
As if he heard an angel's lyre?
O who can tell what heavenly strain
Sheds rapture on the couch of pain?

—And will no mermaid from her cave,
Lift her soft bosom through the wave?
Was all the wild Achaian told,
Of silken hair and scaly fold.
Of lonely wanderers to the shore
Who saw, and heard, and came no more,
An idle poet's empty tale,
To make the shepherd's cheek turn pale?

—A vanished dream! the time has been,
When spirits trod the nightly green,
When rocks, and waves, and hills, and plains,
Were vocal with aerial strains—
And are they gone who poured the breath
Of life, upon the lips of death;
Who peopled earth, and sea, and sky,
With things that were too fair to die?
All, all, are gone; creation's prime,
Unsullied by the touch of time,
The earth's first transient morning flush,
The star's first glow, the flower's first blush,
They saw; but all has past away,
All save the legend and the lay.

—And though Philosophy has rent
The gorgeous veil which fancy lent—
Though now no more its mystic shroud
Floats round us like a purple cloud—
Though the cold sages of the schools
Have swathed all earth in laws and rules,
And Nature like an athlete stands,
Bound in the web of subtle hands—
Who does not love to think of hours,
When every limb was robed in flowers?

—But now, with long and sullen sweep,
The wind is rising on the deep;
And Ocean flings his hoary locks
In ringlets on the broken rocks.
Is there no Nautilus to guide
His pearly skiff along the tide
With varnished beak and snowy sail,
To cut the wave, and court the gale?

—Not on those chill and frozen seas
Spreads he his wings before the breeze,
Where winds that howl and waves that roar
Clash onward to the frozen shore—
Go to the ice-bound Alps and seek
The myrtle on the glacier's peak,
But think not vainly here to find
The shapes that woo the spicy wind
Where one eternal summer smiles
On crystal seas and emerald isles.
Where Spring sits shuddering as she wears
The belt of buds that winter tears,
Think not that Nature binds with pearls
Her iron brow and sable curls.

—Farewell, wide Ocean—where I stand
Soon shall thy billows sweep the sand—
Where late the noiseless sea-bird crept,
Where insects shut their wings and slept,
Thy beating surge and dashing spray
Shall rend the living rocks away.