Classic Poem

Who is this, of all our Voices hushed beyond the singing shore,
Where the foamless roll of silence cradles peace forevermore,
Who is this, that still returning, mourns his eerie dream of Aden,
And his mystic, bloodless music chants the spell of lost Lenore?

Was thy singing ever mortal, warmed by human fierce desires,
Ere the living passion flickered into pale sepulchral fires?
Or was life to thee but shadow, — song to thee but friendless yearning,
Thy first home the spirit vision whither still thy heart aspires?

O thy high and pallid singing, fugitive from baffled death,
Surely moves from phantom lips, and pulses with unearthly breath!
Not of earth thou wert, dead singer, — thee hath also death rejected?
Hath nor death nor life its laurel for thy song's ethereal wreath?

Changeling of the Muses, bearing mortal exile all thy days,
Rapt from starry heights of fairy to endure earth's heavy ways,
Alien from what land, and pilgrim to what shrine — here lost and lonely?
Even praise of thee will falter; scarce we know the man we praise.

Lost indeed and hither fallen, as the proud lightbearer fell,
Out of harmonies eternal, out of peace ineffable.
Into discord, into darkness, into bitterness infernal, —
For to wear our wingless vesture, for a soul like thine was hell.

Shadow-lover, building twilight-worlds of swift-enfolding doom,
Where the haunted soul is mirrored in its own demonic gloom,
Yet from utter darkness kindling still the tragic flame of beauty,
Till from death, from hate, from horror streams its melancholy bloom;

Dreamer of the dauntless will, that darkened soars to perfect sight,
Dauntless, though this muddy garment weight its wings and dull its flight,
Up from lesser gloom to lesser gloom a finer ether winning,
Till the thought escape the body into skies of cloudless light;

Shall we call thee lost, dead poet, — we whose fate is kin to thine?
Shadows are our world, and phantom half the stars that o'er us shine;
Shall we call him lost, who faithful toward the light of beauty beacons,
And our days his mystic singing floods with loveliness divine?