Classic Poem

Now call the Muses' aid to flout
The bleak storm's roaring rage without;
And bring it hail, or bring it snow,
It shall be Love's delight to show
What Fire and two defenders dare
Against the legions of the air,
Whose sharpest arrows shall not find
Cleft in the armor of the mind.
Why dread we Winter's deep distress,
His pale and frigid loneliness,
When here at hand are stored, in nooks
All climes, all company, in books!
A moving tale for every mood,
Shakspere for all,—the fount and food
Of gentle living,—Fancy's link
'Twixt what we are and what we think,—
Fellow to stars that nightly plod
Old Space, yet kindred to the clod.
Choose now from his world's wizard play
What is frolicsome and gay;
'T was for such evening he divined
Not Juliet but Rosalind.
Put the storied sorrow down,—
Not to-night, with Jove-like frown,
Shall the mighty Tuscan throw
Fateful lightnings at his foe,
Nor Hawthorne bend his graceful course
To follow motive to its source.
No, let gladness greet the ear:
Cervantes' wit, or Chaucer's cheer,
Or Lamb's rich cordial, pure and sweet,
Where aromatic tinctures meet;
Or princely Thackeray, whose pages
Yield humor wiser than the sages;
Or, set in cherished place apart,
Poets that keep the world in heart:
Milton's massive lines that pour
Like waves upon a windward shore;
Wordsworth's refuge from the crowd—
The peace of noon-day's poised cloud;
That flaming torch a jealous line
Passed on to Keats from Beauty's shrine;
Visions of Shelley's prophet-soul,
That, seeing part, could sing the whole,
Most like a lark that mounts so high
He sees not earth but from the sky.
And of the bards who in the grime
And turmoil of our changing time
Have kept the faith of men most pure
The three whose harps shall last endure:
Browning, Knight of Song,—so made
By Nature's royal accolade,—
Whose lines, as life-blood full and warm,
Search for the soul within the form,
And in the treasures of whose lore
Is Love, Love, ever at the core;
Tennyson, of the silver string,
Wisest of the true that sing,
And truest singer of the wise;
And he whose “stairway of surprise”
Soars to an outlook whence appear
All best things, fair, and sure, and near.