Classic Poem

Forever perished seems the age of gold,
With all the May-morn glory of the past;
Where now the songs the minstrels sang of old,
A-thrill with fervor like a trumpet blast?

Ah, in those days Life sipped of morning dew
Fresh from the bosom of a springtime bud;
Youth's pink-white feet on skylark pinions flew,
All April's ardor tingling through his blood.

Now is the sordid age of greed and gain:
Now bloated Mammon rules the market-place:
The Poet, like the Painter, strives in vain, —
O glorious doom, to share their Art's disgrace!

Ah, we are only struggling pioneers,
To blaze the path for others yet to be;
Ours is the task to dig through thankless years,
And found the temples we shall never see.

Some time that golden age again shall come,
The olden glory shine once more for men.
But that far day shall dawn when we are dumb,
And who shall mourn us, who shall miss us then?

Far in the future, through the jealous haze,
We see the golden city reared to Art;
We see its cloud-encircled turrets blaze,
As splendid as the sunset's burning heart.

That promised land our feet shall never tread,
Our hands shall never pluck its flowers and fruits;
Our cheeks shall never flush from white to red
From passion-pealing of its lovers' lutes.

Yet in that purple age I wish one bard
To say of me these little words of praise:
" He plodded on through sharpened flint and shard,
Though sordid cares pursued him all his days.

" In darkest hours he wrought with cheerful will:
He shared the exile of his precious Art;
Though men denied applause, he labored still,
Nor wrote one line to please the vulgar mart.

" So, like a priest who guards a temple's light,
He trimmed the lamp whose flame was nearly gone:
He kept his vow to watch it through the night,
And died beside it at the birth of dawn. "