Classic Poem

" WHERE are the visions that round me once hovered,
" Forms that shed grace from their shadows alone;
" Looks fresh as light from a star just discovered,
" And voices that Music might take for her own? "

Time, while I spoke, with his wings resting o'er me,
Heard me say, " Where are those visions, oh where? "
And pointing his wand to the sunset before me,
Said, with a voice like the hollow wind, " There. "

Fondly I looked, when the wizard had spoken,
And there, mid the dim-shining ruins of day.
Saw, by their light, like a talisman broken,
The last golden fragments of hope melt away.