Classic Poem

A LONE , alone, alone,
I walk by the sounding shore;
I hear the wild winds talking,
And the breaker's answering roar;
But they hold a mystic language
I cannot understand,
Though my soul it longs and listens,
As I pace the silver sand,
To the deep, aeolian syllables,
Blown from the winter land —
The thunder-surging sentences,
That crash along the strand!

I listen and I ponder,
And my spirit longs for him,
For whom the book of the Universe
Held nothing vague or dim;
For I cannot grasp the meaning,
And my soul is less at ease,
Than the gull that plunges through the surf,
And wrestles with the breeze!
But alas! for nevermore
Will he pace the sands with me,
While I hear his grand translation
Of the old time mystery —
The solemn wind a-talking,
And the answer of the sea!
Therefore by these sad waves,
A spell forever lies,
And from these sullen-sighing pines,
The ancient music dies;
And from yonder beetling cliff,
That catches the earliest day,
And every olden haunt we loved,
The glory fades away!
And as a wandering child at night
Moves on in doubt and pain,
And unto the desolate darkness,
Doth wofully complain,
I wake the echoes with my cries,
And call, and call in vain,
And listen long for the kindly voice
I never shall hear again!

He might have left a name.
Revered, inviolate,
Aloft in the pantheon of Fame,
With names of the good and great, —
The princes of the realm of rhyme,
Or God-like, vigilant, sublime,
Have held the helm of state;
But his soul, like a carolling lark,
Soared high o'er Time and Fate,
Till the sentinel-seraphim heard his voice,
And opened the shining gate!

So I dream of an angel waiting,
Where never the wild winds roar,
But the dying ripple in music breaks,
On a golden-sanded shore;
And I give my tears to the vanished years,
A joy I shall find no more!