Classic Poem

The moon, a pale, forlorn, neglected queen,
The rock, a broken and abandoned throne,
The stream, a wanderer making midnight moan
About the place where once his joy has been,
And then, soft glistening in the ghostly sheen,
Thou sweet and tender child of dust and stone;
What dost thou in the wilderness alone,
Who bade thee blossom here? What did He mean,
He who hath made the stony rock — and thee,
And on the bosom of the wilderness,
Thy cruel mother, laid so sweet a child?
Ah! there are lives as waste and rough and wild,
Unlovely, loveless, joyless, pitiless —
Great is His power; great may His mercy be.