Classic Poem

Settlers and pioneers, they wrought—reclaiming the desert,
Making its barrenness bloom: winning their bread from the waste.
Oft after long days of toil as they sat on their stoeps in the twilight,
Listless, weary and spent, filled with misgiving and gloom,
Mournful, from darkening fields they heard the lone cry of the plover,
Heard the importunate roar of lions prowling for prey:
And as they silently mused in the sombre tints of the twilight,
Greyness crept into their souls, sad as the landscape around:
Dreams and hopes and desires, lit once with the dew of life's morning,
Shrivelled and faded and died, leaving no glimmer behind.
Then, as the darkness fell, the moon arose pallid and ghostlike,
Silently flooding the plains with waves of silver and pearl:
Like a bright bird she emerged from the flowerless forest of darkness,
Scaling with motionless wings the steep blue cliff of the sky:
And at her coming the weary, entranced by the spell of her beauty,
Dreamed of a northern isle kissed and caressed by the sea:
Dreamed of green billowy lanes white-flecked with the foam of the hawthorn,
Meadows dappled with daisies rapt with the song of the lark.