Classic Poem

O Heart of all the shining day,
The green earth's still Delight,
Thou Freshness in the morning wind,
Thou Silence of the night,
Thou Beauty of our temple-walls,
Thou Strength within the stone, —
What is it we can offer thee
That is not first thine own?

Old memories throng: we think of those
Awhile with us who trod,
Whose hands yet lift within our lives, —
We called them " Gift of God:"
And thine these shinings in our thought,
This eager, love-wrought hope,
This deathless faith they wait and watch
On some fair upper slope.

O, solemn-sweet the sureness grows,
When such as they have passed;
The darkness fills, the silence thrills,
Their life pervades the Vast;
The vanished virtue quickens through
And touches every star;
Their unseen love — we know it thine,
Thy Living Love they are!