Classic Poem

Sometimes I see thee, pale with scorn and sorrow,
At a great palace window, looking forth,
To-day on plumed Florentines, — to-morrow
Upon the hireling legions of the North:
Sometimes o'er little children bending lowly,
To hear their cry, in the dark factories drowned;
Ah, then thy pitying brow grows sweet and holy,
With a saint's aureole of sorrow crowned!
But most I love thee when that mystic glory —
Kindling at horrors that abhor the day —
Sheds a wild, stormy splendor o'er the story
Of the dark fugitive, who turned away
To death's cold threshold, calm in death's disdain,
From the " White Pilgrim's Rock, " beside the western main.