Classic Poem

Once at the hour when pensive Eve
Approached with welcome step and slow,
I viewed the dying sunlight weave
A deep immeasurable glow.

And gazing rapt upon the sight,
It seemed that spread before me lay
A landscape clad in robes of light
And gorgeous as the gates of day.

Huge mountains rose august and high,
Peak piled on peak and range on range,
Outstanding from the molten sky,
While at their feet, in contrast strange,

Broad placid lakes of rosy sheen
Lay 'mid the purple-tinted hills.
Adown the valleys deep and green
Came a far glimpse of sparkling rills.

And through those vales bright rivers flowed
In many a wide, meandering sweep;
The sunlight o'er them broke and glowed,
And mellowed splendors hushed their sleep.

A holy quiet wrapped it round;
My soul to stillness like was hushed.
No note it took of things around;
While from its inmost depths there gushed

The recognizing joy we feel
When long-departed friends are met,
Who once have shared our woe and weal,
And link their memories with us yet.

But now dissolves the fairy sight,
The evanescent traceries fade,
As melt beneath the morning light
The gem-like dew-drops of the glade.

The scene was gone. The glowing hues
From evening's brow had fled away,
But faithful memory oft renews
Remembrance of that heavenly day.

If human souls eternal be,
Eternal, too, must be their powers.
The priceless blooms of memory
Die not the death of earthly flowers.

No gift that in her charge we place
Is lost from memory's guardian care;
Though oft we fear gone every trace,
They still repose in casket rare.

Until, when least we seek the spring,
The lid flies open and discloses,
Like genii ruled by charméd ring,
The long-sought, long-mourned gems and roses.

Somewhere within its depths must lie
The memories of a former life,
As unseen stars sleep in the sky
Beyond the reach of earthly strife.

God fashioned forth the voiceless clay,
The dwelling of the soul and mind;
But in the light of heavenly day
The glorious habitants reclined,

Until into the slumbering clod
He breathed His own celestial fire,
And man became the child of God,
The living image of his Sire.

Within the soul's unfathomed clime
There lurks a subtle memory,
Which, far outstretching bounds of time,
Seems grasping at eternity.

And, gazing back upon that sea
Whence all have come, where all return,
That chaos of immensity,
Earth's travellers starting-point and bourn,

It sometimes seems to catch the roar,
Ascending from abysses vast,
Of billows striking on the shore,
The lifeless shore of centuries past;

And through the mist that clouds its face
Discerns with more than mortal ken
Shapes indistinct uprise from space
And people all the void again.