Classic Poem

As who, in idly searching o'er
Some seldom-entered garret shed,
Might, with strange pity, touch the poor
Moth-eaten garments of the dead, —

Thus, (to their wearer once allied,)
I lift these weeds of buried woe —
These relics of a Self that died
So sadly and so long ago.

'Tis said that seven short years can change,
Through nerve and bone, this knitted frame, —
Cellule by cellule waxing strange,
Till not an atom is the same.

By what more subtle, slow degrees,
Thus may the mind transmute its all,
That calmly it should dwell on these,
As on another's fate and fall!

So far remote from joy or bale,
Wherewith each dusky page is rife,
I seem to read some piteous tale
Of romance, true unto the life.

Too daring thoughts! too idle deeds!
A soul that questioned, loved, and sinned!
And hopes, that stand like last year's weeds
And shudder in the dead March wind!

Grave of gone dreams! could such convulse
Youth's fevered trance? — The plot grows thick;
Was it this cold and even pulse
That thrilled with life so fierce and quick?

Well, I can smile at all this now, —
But cannot smile when I recall
The heart of faith, the open brow,
The trust that once was all in all; —

Nor when — Ah, faded, spectral sheet!
Wraith of long-perished wrong and time —
Forbear! the spirit starts to meet
The resurrection of its crime!

Starts — from its human world shut out —
As some detected changeling elf,
Doomed, with strange agony and doubt,
To enter on his former self.

Ill-omened leaves, still rust apart!
No further! — 'tis a page turned o'er,
And the long dead and coffined heart
Throbs into wretched life once more.