A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!

 

And, in parting from you now,

 

Thus much let me avow--

 

You are not wrong, who deem

 

That my days have been a dream:

 

Yet if hope has flown away

 

In a night, or in a day,

 

In a vision or in none,

 

Is it therefore the less gone?

 

All that we see or seem

 

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

 

Of a surf-tormented shore,

 

And I hold within my hand

 

Grains of the golden sand--

 

How few! yet how they creep

 

Through my fingers to the deep

 

While I weep--while I weep!

 

O God! can I not grasp

 

Them with a tighter clasp?

 

O God! can I not save

 

One from the pitiless wave?

 

Is all that we see or seem

 

But a dream within a dream?

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To Marie Louise

Of all who hail thy presence as the morning--

 

Of all to whom thine absence is the night--

 

The blotting utterly from out high heaven

 

The sacred sun--of all who, weeping, bless thee

 

Hourly for hope--for life--ah, above all,

 

For the resurrection of deep buried faith

 

In truth, in virtue, in humanity--

 

Of all who, on despair's unhallowed bed

 

Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen

 

At thy soft-murmured words, "Let there be light!"

 

At thy soft-murmured words that were fulfilled

 

In thy seraphic glancing of thine eyes--

 

Of all who owe thee most, whose gratitude

 

Nearest resembles worship,--oh, remember

 

The truest, the most fervently devoted,

 

And think that these weak lines are written by him--

 

By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think

 

His spirit is communing with an angel's.

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The City In The Sea

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne

 

In a strange city lying alone

 

Far down within the dim West,

 

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best

 

Have gone to their eternal rest.

 

There shrines and palaces and towers

 

(Time-eaten towers and tremble not!)

 

Resemble nothing that is ours.

 

Around, by lifting winds forgot,

 

Resignedly beneath the sky

 

The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy Heaven come down

 

On the long night-time of that town;

 

But light from out the lurid sea

 

Streams up the turrets silently--

 

Gleams up the pinnacles far and free--

 

Up domes--up spires--up kingly halls--

 

Up fanes--up Babylon-like walls--

 

Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers

 

Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers--

 

Up many and many a marvellous shrine

 

Whose wreathed friezes intertwine

 

The viol, the violet, and the vine.

Resignedly beneath the sky

 

The melancholy waters lie.

 

So blend the turrets and shadows there

 

That all seem pendulous in air,

 

While from a proud tower in the town

 

Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves

 

Yawn level with the luminous waves;

 

But not the riches there that lie

 

In each idol's diamond eye--

 

Not the gaily-jewelled dead

 

Tempt the waters from their bed;

 

For no ripples curl, alas!

 

Along that wilderness of glass--

 

No swellings tell that winds may be

 

Upon some far-off happier sea--

 

No heavings hint that winds have been

 

On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!

 

The wave--there is a movement there!

 

As if the towers had thrust aside,

 

In slightly sinking, the dull tide--

 

As if their tops had feebly given

 

A void within the filmy Heaven.

 

The waves have now a redder glow--

 

The hours are breathing faint and low--

 

And when, amid no earthly moans,

 

Down, down that town shall settle hence,

 

Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,

 

Shall do it reverence.

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The Sleeper

At midnight, in the month of June,

 

I stand beneath the mystic moon.

 

An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,

 

Exhales from out her golden rim,

 

And, softly dripping, drop by drop,

 

Upon the quiet mountain top,

 

Steals drowsily and musically

 

Into the universal valley.

 

The rosemary nods upon the grave;

 

The lily lolls upon the wave;

 

Wrapping the fog about its breast,

 

The ruin moulders into rest;

 

Looking like Lethe, see! the lake

 

A conscious slumber seems to take,

 

And would not, for the world, awake.

 

All Beauty sleeps!--and lo! where lies

 

(Her casement open to the skies)

 

Irene, with her Destinies!

Oh, lady bright! can it be right--

 

This window open to the night!

 

The wanton airs, from the tree-top,

 

Laughingly through the lattice-drop--

 

The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,

 

Flit through thy chamber in and out,

 

And wave the curtain canopy

 

So fitfully--so fearfully--

 

Above the closed and fringed lid

 

'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid,

 

That, o'er the floor and down the wall,

 

Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!

 

Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?

 

Why and what art thou dreaming here?

 

Sure thou art come o'er far-off seas,

 

A wonder to these garden trees!

 

Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!

 

Strange, above all, thy length of tress,

 

And this all-solemn silentness!

The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep

 

Which is enduring, so be deep!

 

Heaven have her in its sacred keep!

 

This chamber changed for one more holy,

 

This bed for one more melancholy,

 

I pray to God that she may lie

 

For ever with unopened eye,

 

While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!

My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,

 

As it is lasting, so be deep;

 

Soft may the worms about her creep!

 

Far in the forest, dim and old,

 

For her may some tall vault unfold--

 

Some vault that oft hath flung its black

 

And winged panels fluttering back,

 

Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,

 

Of her grand family funerals--

 

Some sepulchre, remote, alone,

 

Against whose portal she hath thrown,

 

In childhood many an idle stone--

 

Some tomb from out whose sounding door

 

She ne'er shall force an echo more,

 

Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!

 

It was the dead who groaned within.

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Bridal Ballad

The ring is on my hand,

 

And the wreath is on my brow;

 

Satins and jewels grand

 

Are all at my command.

 

And I am happy now.

And my lord he loves me well;

 

But, when first he breathed his vow,

 

I felt my bosom swell--

 

For the words rang as a knell,

 

And the voice seemed his who fell

 

In the battle down the dell,

 

And who is happy now.

But he spoke to reassure me,

 

And he kissed my pallid brow,

 

While a reverie came o'er me,

 

And to the churchyard bore me,

 

And I sighed to him before me,

 

Thinking him dead D'Elormie,

 

"Oh, I am happy now!"

And thus the words were spoken,

 

And thus the plighted vow,

 

And, though my faith be broken,

 

And, though my heart be broken,

 

Behold the golden keys

 

That proves me happy now!

Would to God I could awaken

 

For I dream I know not how,

 

And my soul is sorely shaken

 

Lest an evil step be taken,--

 

Lest the dead who is forsaken

 

May not be happy now.

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Lenore

Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!

 

Let the bell toll!--a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river.

 

And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?--weep now or never more!

 

See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!

 

Come! let the burial rite be read--the funeral song be sung!--

 

An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young--

 

A dirge for her, the doubly dead in that she died so young.

"Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,

 

And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her--that she died!

 

How shall the ritual, then, be read?--the requiem how be sung

 

By you--by yours, the evil eye,--by yours, the slanderous tongue

 

That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?"

Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song

 

Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong!

 

The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside,

 

Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride--

 

For her, the fair and debonnaire, that now so lowly lies,

 

The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes--

 

The life still there, upon her hair--the death upon her eyes.

"Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,

 

But waft the angel on her flight with a p?an of old days!

 

Let no bell toll!--lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,

 

Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damned Earth.

 

To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven--

 

From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven--

 

From grief and groan to a golden throne beside the King of Heaven."

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To One In Paradise

Thou wast that all to me, love,

 

For which my soul did pine--

 

A green isle in the sea, love,

 

A fountain and a shrine,

 

All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,

 

And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!

 

Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise

 

But to be overcast!

 

A voice from out the Future cries,

 

"On! on!"--but o'er the Past

 

(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies

 

Mute, motionless, aghast!

For, alas! alas! with me

 

The light of Life is o'er!

 

"No more--no more--no more"--

 

(Such language holds the solemn sea

 

To the sands upon the shore)

 

Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,

 

Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances,

 

And all my nightly dreams

 

Are where thy dark eye glances,

 

And where thy footstep gleams--

 

In what ethereal dances,

 

By what eternal streams!

Alas! for that accursed time

 

They bore thee o'er the billow,

 

From love to titled age and crime,

 

And an unholy pillow!

 

From me, and from our misty clime,

 

Where weeps the silver willow!

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The Coliseum

Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary

 

Of lofty contemplation left to Time

 

By buried centuries of pomp and power!

 

At length--at length--after so many days

 

Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst,

 

(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,)

 

I kneel, an altered and an humble man,

 

Amid thy shadows, and so drink within

 

My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory!

Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!

 

Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night!

 

I feel ye now--I feel ye in your strength--

 

O spells more sure than e'er Judean king

 

Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane!

 

O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee

 

Ever drew down from out the quiet stars!

Here, where a hero fell, a column falls!

 

Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold,

 

A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat!

 

Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair

 

Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle!

 

Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled,

 

Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home,

 

Lit by the wan light of the horned moon,

 

The swift and silent lizard of the stones!

But stay! these walls--these ivy-clad arcades--

 

These mouldering plinths--these sad and blackened shafts--

 

These vague entablatures--this crumbling frieze--

 

These shattered cornices--this wreck--this ruin--

 

These stones--alas! these gray stones--are they all--

 

All of the famed, and the colossal left

 

By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?

"Not all"--the Echoes answer me--"not all!

 

Prophetic sounds and loud, arise forever

 

From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise,

 

As melody from Memnon to the Sun.

 

We rule the hearts of mightiest men--we rule

 

With a despotic sway all giant minds.

 

We are not impotent--we pallid stones.

 

Not all our power is gone--not all our fame--

 

Not all the magic of our high renown--

 

Not all the wonder that encircles us--

 

Not all the mysteries that in us lie--

 

Not all the memories that hang upon

 

And cling around about us as a garment,

 

Clothing us in a robe of more than glory."

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The End | Go to top

The Haunted Palace

In the greenest of our valleys

 

By good angels tenanted,

 

Once a fair and stately palace--

 

Radiant palace--reared its head.

 

In the monarch Thought's dominion--

 

It stood there!

 

Never seraph spread a pinion

 

Over fabric half so fair!

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,

 

On its roof did float and flow,

 

(This--all this--was in the olden

 

Time long ago),

 

And every gentle air that dallied,

 

In that sweet day,

 

Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,

 

A winged odor went away.

Wanderers in that happy valley,

 

Through two luminous windows, saw

 

Spirits moving musically,

 

To a lute's well-tun?d law,

 

Bound about a throne where, sitting

 

(Porphyrogene!)

 

In state his glory well befitting,

 

The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing

 

Was the fair palace door,

 

Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,

 

And sparkling evermore,

 

A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty

 

Was but to sing,

 

In voices of surpassing beauty,

 

The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,

 

Assailed the monarch's high estate.

 

(Ah, let us mourn!--for never morrow

 

Shall dawn upon him desolate!)

 

And round about his home the glory

 

That blushed and bloomed,

 

Is but a dim-remembered story

 

Of the old time entombed.

And travellers, now, within that valley,

 

Through the red-litten windows see

 

Vast forms, that move fantastically

 

To a discordant melody,

 

While, like a ghastly rapid river,

 

Through the pale door

 

A hideous throng rush out forever

 

And laugh--but smile no more.

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The End | Go to top

The Conqueror Worm

Lo! 'tis a gala night

 

Within the lonesome latter years!

 

An angel throng, bewinged, bedight

 

In veils, and drowned in tears,

 

Sit in a theatre, to see

 

A play of hopes and fears,

 

While the orchestra breathes fitfully

 

The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,

 

Mutter and mumble low,

 

And hither and thither fly--

 

Mere puppets they, who come and go

 

At bidding of vast formless things

 

That shift the scenery to and fro,

 

Flapping from out their Condor wings

 

Invisible Wo!

That motley drama--oh, be sure

 

It shall not be forgot!

 

With its Phantom chased for evermore,

 

By a crowd that seize it not,

 

Through a circle that ever returneth in

 

To the self-same spot,

 

And much of Madness, and more of Sin,

 

And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout

 

A crawling shape intrude!

 

A blood-red thing that writhes from out

 

The scenic solitude!

 

It writhes!--it writhes!--with mortal pangs

 

The mimes become its food,

 

And the angels sob at vermin fangs

 

In human gore imbued.

Out--out are the lights--out all!

 

And, over each quivering form,

 

The curtain, a funeral pall,

 

Comes down with the rush of a storm,

 

And the angels, all pallid and wan,

 

Uprising, unveiling, affirm

 

That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"

 

And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

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The End | Go to top

Silence

There are some qualities--some incorporate things,

 

That have a double life, which thus is made

 

A type of that twin entity which springs

 

From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.

 

There is a twofold Silence --sea and shore--

 

Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,

 

Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces,

 

Some human memories and tearful lore,

 

Render him terrorless: his name's "No More."

 

He is the corporate Silence: dread him not!

 

No power hath he of evil in himself;

 

But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)

 

Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,

 

That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod

 

No foot of man), commend thyself to God!

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The End | Go to top

Dreamland

By a route obscure and lonely,

 

Haunted by ill angels only,

 

Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,

 

On a black throne reigns upright,

 

I have reached these lands but newly

 

From an ultimate dim Thule--

 

From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,

 

Out of SPACE--out of TIME.

Bottomless vales and boundless floods,

 

And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,

 

With forms that no man can discover

 

For the dews that drip all over;

 

Mountains toppling evermore

 

Into seas without a shore;

 

Seas that restlessly aspire,

 

Surging, unto skies of fire;

 

Lakes that endlessly outspread

 

Their lone waters--lone and dead,

 

Their still waters--still and chilly

 

With the snows of the lolling lily.

By the lakes that thus outspread

 

Their lone waters, lone and dead,--

 

Their sad waters, sad and chilly

 

With the snows of the lolling lily,--

By the mountains--near the river

 

Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,--

 

By the gray woods,--by the swamp

 

Where the toad and the newt encamp,--

 

By the dismal tarns and pools

 

Where dwell the Ghouls,--

 

By each spot the most unholy--

 

In each nook most melancholy,--

There the traveller meets aghast

 

Sheeted Memories of the past--

 

Shrouded forms that start and sigh

 

As they pass the wanderer by--

 

White-robed forms of friends long given,

 

In agony, to the Earth--and Heaven.

For the heart whose woes are legion

 

'Tis a peaceful, soothing region--

 

For the spirit that walks in shadow

 

'Tis--oh, 'tis an Eldorado!

 

But the traveller, travelling through it,

 

May not--dare not openly view it;

 

Never its mysteries are exposed

 

To the weak human eye unclosed;

 

So wills its King, who hath forbid

 

The uplifting of the fringed lid;

 

And thus the sad Soul that here passes

 

Beholds it but through darkened glasses.

By a route obscure and lonely,

 

Haunted by ill angels only.

Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,

 

On a black throne reigns upright,

 

I have wandered home but newly

 

From this ultimate dim Thule.

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The End | Go to top

To Zante

Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers,

 

Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take!

 

How many memories of what radiant hours

 

At sight of thee and thine at once awake!

 

How many scenes of what departed bliss!

 

How many thoughts of what entombed hopes!

 

How many visions of a maiden that is

 

No more--no more upon thy verdant slopes!

No more! alas, that magical sad sound

 

Transforming all! Thy charms shall please no more --

 

Thy memory no more! Accursed ground

 

Henceforward I hold thy flower-enamelled shore,

 

O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!

 

"Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante!"

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The End | Go to top

Hymn

At morn--at noon--at twilight dim--

 

Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!

 

In joy and wo--in good and ill--

 

Mother of God, be with me still!

 

When the Hours flew brightly by,

 

And not a cloud obscured the sky,

 

My soul, lest it should truant be,

 

Thy grace did guide to thine and thee

 

Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast

 

Darkly my Present and my Past,

 

Let my future radiant shine

 

With sweet hopes of thee and thine!

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The End | Go to top

Sonnet -- To Science

SCIENCE! true daughter of Old Time thou art!

 

Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.

 

Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,

 

Vulture, whose wings are dull realities

 

How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,

 

Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering

 

To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,

 

Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing!

 

Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?

 

And driven the Hamadryad from the wood

 

To seek a shelter in some happier star?

 

Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,

 

The Elfin from the green grass, and from me

 

The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

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The End | Go to top

Al Aaraaf

Mysterious star!

 

Thou wert my dream

 

All a long summer night--

 

Be now my theme!

 

By this clear stream,

 

Of thee will I write;

 

Meantime from afar

 

Bathe me in light!

Thy world has not the dross of ours,

 

Yet all the beauty--all the flowers

 

That list our love or deck our bowers

 

In dreamy gardens, where do lie

 

Dreamy maidens all the day;

 

While the silver winds of Circassy

 

On violet couches faint away.

 

Little--oh! little dwells in thee

 

Like unto what on earth we see:

 

Beauty's eye is here the bluest

 

In the falsest and untruest--

 

On the sweetest air doth float

 

The most sad and solemn note--

 

If with thee be broken hearts,

 

Joy so peacefully departs,

 

That its echo still doth dwell,

 

Like the murmur in the shell.

 

Thou! thy truest type of grief

 

Is the gently falling leaf--

 

Thou! thy framing is so holy

 

Sorrow is not melancholy.

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The End | Go to top

Tamerlane

Kind solace in a dying hour!

 

Such, father, is not (now) my theme--

 

I will not madly deem that power

 

Of Earth may shrive me of the sin

 

Unearthly pride hath revelled in--

 

I have no time to dote or dream:

 

You call it hope--that fire of fire!

 

It is but agony of desire:

 

If I can hope--O God! I can--

 

Its fount is holier--more divine--

 

I would not call thee fool, old man,

 

But such is not a gift of thine.

Know thou the secret of a spirit

 

Bowed from its wild pride into shame

 

O yearning heart! I did inherit

 

Thy withering portion with the fame,

 

The searing glory which hath shone

 

Amid the Jewels of my throne,

 

Halo of Hell! and with a pain

 

Not Hell shall make me fear again--

 

O craving heart, for the lost flowers

 

And sunshine of my summer hours!

 

The undying voice of that dead time,

 

With its interminable chime,

 

Rings, in the spirit of a spell,

 

Upon thy emptiness--a knell.

I have not always been as now:

 

The fevered diadem on my brow

 

I claimed and won usurpingly--

 

Hath not the same fierce heirdom given

 

Rome to the C?sar--this to me?

 

The heritage of a kingly mind,

 

And a proud spirit which hath striven

 

Triumphantly with human kind.

 

On mountain soil I first drew life:

 

The mists of the Taglay have shed

 

Nightly their dews upon my head,

 

And, I believe, the winged strife

 

And tumult of the headlong air

 

Have nestled in my very hair.

So late from Heaven--that dew--it fell

 

('Mid dreams of an unholy night)

 

Upon me with the touch of Hell,

 

While the red flashing of the light

 

From clouds that hung, like banners, o'er,

 

Appeared to my half-closing eye

 

The pageantry of monarchy;

 

And the deep trumpet-thunder's roar

 

Came hurriedly upon me, telling

 

Of human battle, where my voice,

 

My own voice, silly child!--was swelling

 

(O! how my spirit would rejoice,

 

And leap within me at the cry)

 

The battle-cry of Victory!

The rain came down upon my head

 

Unsheltered--and the heavy wind

 

Rendered me mad and deaf and blind.

 

It was but man, I thought, who shed

 

Laurels upon me: and the rush--

 

The torrent of the chilly air

 

Gurgled within my ear the crush

 

Of empires--with the captive's prayer--

 

The hum of suitors--and the tone

 

Of flattery 'round a sovereign's throne.

My passions, from that hapless hour,

 

Usurped a tyranny which men

 

Have deemed since I have reached to power,

 

My innate nature--be it so:

 

But, father, there lived one who, then,

 

Then--in my boyhood--when their fire

 

Burned with a still intenser glow

 

(For passion must, with youth, expire)

 

E'en then who knew this iron heart

 

In woman's weakness had a part.

I have no words--alas!--to tell

 

The loveliness of loving well!

 

Nor would I now attempt to trace

 

The more than beauty of a face

 

Whose lineaments, upon my mind,

 

Are--shadows on th' unstable wind:

 

Thus I remember having dwelt

 

Some page of early lore upon,

 

With loitering eye, till I have felt

 

The letters--with their meaning--melt

 

To fantasies--with none.

O, she was worthy of all love!

 

Love as in infancy was mine--

 

'Twas such as angel minds above

 

Might envy; her young heart the shrine

 

On which my every hope and thought

 

Were incense--then a goodly gift,

 

For they were childish and upright--

 

Pure--as her young example taught:

 

Why did I leave it, and, adrift,

 

Trust to the fire within, for light?

We grew in age--and love--together--

 

Roaming the forest, and the wild;

 

My breast her shield in wintry weather--

 

And, when the friendly sunshine smiled.

 

And she would mark the opening skies,

 

I saw no Heaven--but in her eyes.

 

Young Love's first lesson is----the heart:

 

For 'mid that sunshine, and those smiles,

 

When, from our little cares apart,

 

And laughing at her girlish wiles,

 

I'd throw me on her throbbing breast,

 

And pour my spirit out in tears--

 

There was no need to speak the rest--

 

No need to quiet any fears

 

Of her--who asked no reason why,

 

But turned on me her quiet eye!

Yet more than worthy of the love

 

My spirit struggled with, and strove

 

When, on the mountain peak, alone,

 

Ambition lent it a new tone--

 

I had no being--but in thee:

 

The world, and all it did contain

 

In the earth--the air--the sea--

 

Its joy--its little lot of pain

 

That was new pleasure--the ideal,

 

Dim, vanities of dreams by night--

 

And dimmer nothings which were real--

 

(Shadows--and a more shadowy light!)

 

Parted upon their misty wings,

 

And, so, confusedly, became

 

Thine image and--a name--a name!

 

Two separate--yet most intimate things.

I was ambitious--have you known

 

The passion, father? You have not:

 

A cottager, I marked a throne

 

Of half the world as all my own,

 

And murmured at such lowly lot--

 

But, just like any other dream,

 

Upon the vapor of the dew

 

My own had past, did not the beam

 

Of beauty which did while it thro'

 

The minute--the hour--the day--oppress

 

My mind with double loveliness.

We walked together on the crown

 

Of a high mountain which looked down

 

Afar from its proud natural towers

 

Of rock and forest, on the hills--

 

The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers

 

And shouting with a thousand rills.

I spoke to her of power and pride,

 

But mystically--in such guise

 

That she might deem it nought beside

 

The moment's converse; in her eyes

 

I read, perhaps too carelessly--

 

A mingled feeling with my own--

 

The flush on her bright cheek, to me

 

Seemed to become a queenly throne

 

Too well that I should let it be

 

Light in the wilderness alone.

I wrapped myself in grandeur then,

 

And donned a visionary crown--

 

Yet it was not that Fantasy

 

Had thrown her mantle over me--

 

But that, among the rabble--men,

 

Lion ambition is chained down--

 

And crouches to a keeper's hand--

 

Not so in deserts where the grand--

 

The wild--the terrible conspire

 

With their own breath to fan his fire.

Look 'round thee now on Samarcand!--

 

Is she not queen of Earth? her pride

 

Above all cities? in her hand

 

Their destinies? in all beside

 

Of glory which the world hath known

 

Stands she not nobly and alone?

 

Falling--her veriest stepping-stone

 

Shall form the pedestal of a throne--

 

And who her sovereign? Timour--he

 

Whom the astonished people saw

 

Striding o'er empires haughtily

 

A diademed outlaw!

O, human love! thou spirit given,

 

On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!

 

Which fall'st into the soul like rain

 

Upon the Siroc-withered plain,

 

And, failing in thy power to bless,

 

But leav'st the heart a wilderness!

 

Idea! which bindest life around

 

With music of so strange a sound

 

And beauty of so wild a birth--

 

Farewell! for I have won the Earth.

When Hope, the eagle that towered, could see

 

No cliff beyond him in the sky,

 

His pinions were bent droopingly--

 

And homeward turned his softened eye.

 

'Twas sunset: When the sun will part

 

There comes a sullenness of heart

 

To him who still would look upon

 

The glory of the summer sun.

 

That soul will hate the ev'ning mist

 

So often lovely, and will list

 

To the sound of the coming darkness (known

 

To those whose spirits hearken) as one

 

Who, in a dream of night, would fly,

 

But cannot, from a danger nigh.

What tho' the moon--tho' the white moon

 

Shed all the splendor of her noon,

 

Her smile is chilly--and her beam,

 

In that time of dreariness, will seem

 

(So like you gather in your breath)

 

A portrait taken after death.

 

And boyhood is a summer sun

 

Whose waning is the dreariest one--

 

For all we live to know is known,

 

And all we seek to keep hath flown--

 

Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall

 

With the noon-day beauty--which is all.

 

I reached my home--my home no more--

 

For all had flown who made it so.

 

I passed from out its mossy door,

 

And, tho' my tread was soft and low,

 

A voice came from the threshold stone

 

Of one whom I had earlier known--

 

O, I defy thee, Hell, to show

 

On beds of fire that burn below,

 

An humbler heart--a deeper woe.

Father, I firmly do believe--

 

I know --for Death who comes for me

 

From regions of the blest afar,

 

Where there is nothing to deceive,

 

Hath left his iron gate ajar.

 

And rays of truth you cannot see

 

Are flashing thro' Eternity----

 

I do believe that Eblis hath

 

A snare in every human path--

 

Else how, when in the holy grove

 

I wandered of the idol, Love,--

 

Who daily scents his snowy wings

 

With incense of burnt-offerings

 

From the most unpolluted things,

 

Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven

 

Above with trellised rays from Heaven

 

No mote may shun--no tiniest fly--

 

The light'ning of his eagle eye--

 

How was it that Ambition crept,

 

Unseen, amid the revels there,

 

Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt

 

In the tangles of Love's very hair!

________

The End | Go to top

The Valley of Unrest

Once it smiled a silent dell

 

Where the people did not dwell;

 

They had gone unto the wars,

 

Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,

 

Nightly, from their azure towers,

 

To keep watch above the flowers,

 

In the midst of which all day

 

The red sun-light lazily lay,

 

Now each visitor shall confess

 

The sad valley's restlessness.

 

Nothing there is motionless--

 

Nothing save the airs that brood

 

Over the magic solitude.

 

Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees

 

That palpitate like the chill seas

 

Around the misty Hebrides!

 

Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven

 

That rustle through the unquiet Heaven

 

Unceasingly, from morn till even,

 

Over the violets there that lie

 

In myriad types of the human eye--

 

Over the lilies that wave

 

And weep above a nameless grave!

 

They wave:--from out their fragrant tops

 

Eternal dews come down in drops.

 

They weep:--from off their delicate stems

 

Perennial tears descend in gems.

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The End | Go to top

Israfel

In Heaven a spirit doth dwell

 

"Whose heart-strings are a lute;"

 

None sing so wildly well

 

As the angel Israfel,

 

And the giddy Stars (so legends tell),

 

Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell

 

Of his voice, all mute.

Tottering above

 

In her highest noon,

 

The enamoured Moon

 

Blushes with love,

 

While, to listen, the red levin

 

(With the rapid Pleiads, even,

 

Which were seven),

 

Pauses in Heaven.

And they say (the starry choir

 

And the other listening things)

 

That Israfeli's fire

 

Is owing to that lyre

 

By which he sits and sings--

 

The trembling living wire

 

Of those unusual strings.

But the skies that angel trod,

 

Where deep thoughts are a duty--

 

Where Love's a grow-up God--

 

Where the Houri glances are

 

Imbued with all the beauty

 

Which we worship in a star.

Therefore, thou art not wrong,

 

Israfeli, who despisest

 

An unimpassioned song;

 

To thee the laurels belong,

 

Best bard, because the wisest!

 

Merrily live and long!

The ecstasies above

 

With thy burning measures suit--

 

Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,

 

With the fervor of thy lute--

 

Well may the stars be mute!

Yes, Heaven is thine; but this

 

Is a world of sweets and sours;

 

Our flowers are merely--flowers,

 

And the shadow of thy perfect bliss

 

Is the sunshine of ours.

If I could dwell

 

Where Israfel

 

Hath dwelt, and he where I,

 

He might not sing so wildly well

 

A mortal melody,

 

While a bolder note than this might swell

 

From my lyre within the sky.

________

The End | Go to top

To The River

Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow

 

Of crystal, wandering water,

 

Thou art an emblem of the glow

 

Of beauty--the unhidden heart--

 

The playful maziness of art

 

In old Alberto's daughter;

But when within thy wave she looks--

 

Which glistens then, and trembles--

 

Why, then, the prettiest of brooks

 

Her worshipper resembles;

 

For in his heart, as in thy stream,

 

Her image deeply lies--

 

His heart which trembles at the beam

 

Of her soul-searching eyes.

________

The End | Go to top

Song

I saw thee on thy bridal day--

 

When a burning blush came o'er thee,

 

Though happiness around thee lay,

 

The world all love before thee:

And in thine eye a kindling light

 

(Whatever it might be)

 

Was all on Earth my aching sight

 

Of Loveliness could see.

That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame--

 

As such it well may pass--

 

Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame

 

In the breast of him, alas!

Who saw thee on that bridal day,

 

When that deep blush would come o'er thee,

 

Though happiness around thee lay,

 

The world all love before thee.

________

The End | Go to top

Spirits of The Dead

Thy soul shall find itself alone

 

'Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone

 

Not one, of all the crowd, to pry

 

Into thine hour of secrecy.

 

Be silent in that solitude

 

Which is not loneliness--for then

 

The spirits of the dead who stood

 

In life before thee are again

 

In death around thee--and their will

 

Shall overshadow thee: be still.

 

The night--tho' clear--shall frown--

 

And the stars shall not look down

 

From their high thrones in the Heaven,

 

With light like Hope to mortals given--

 

But their red orbs, without beam,

 

To thy weariness shall seem

 

As a burning and a fever

 

Which would cling to thee forever.

 

Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish--

 

Now are visions ne'er to vanish--

 

From thy spirit shall they pass

 

No more--like dew-drops from the grass.

 

The breeze--the breath of God--is still--

 

And the mist upon the hill

 

Shadowy--shadowy--yet unbroken,

 

Is a symbol and a token--

 

How it hangs upon the trees,

 

A mystery of mysteries!

________

The End

 

A Dream

In visions of the dark night

 

I have dreamed of joy departed--

 

But a waking dream of life and light

 

Hath left me broken-hearted.

Ah! what is not a dream by day

 

To him whose eyes are cast

 

On things around him with a ray

 

Turned back upon the past?

That holy dream--that holy dream,

 

While all the world were chiding,

 

Hath cheered me as a lovely beam,

 

A lonely spirit guiding.

What though that light, thro' storm and night,

 

So trembled from afar--

 

What could there be more purely bright

 

In Truth's day star?

________

The End | Go to top

Romance

Romance, who loves to nod and sing,

 

With drowsy head and folded wing,

 

Among the green leaves as they shake

 

Far down within some shadowy lake,

 

To me a painted paroquet

 

Hath been--a most familiar bird--

 

Taught me my alphabet to say--

 

To lisp my very earliest word

 

While in the wild wood I did lie,

 

A child--with a most knowing eye.

Of late, eternal Condor years

 

So shake the very Heaven on high

 

With tumult as they thunder by,

 

I have no time for idle cares

 

Though gazing on the unquiet sky.

 

And when an hour with calmer wings

 

Its down upon my spirit flings--

 

That little time with lyre and rhyme

 

To while away--forbidden things!

 

My heart would feel to be a crime

 

Unless it trembled with the strings.

________

The End | Go to top

Fairyland

Dim vales--and shadowy floods--

 

And cloudy-looking woods,

 

Whose forms we can't discover

 

For the tears that drip all over

 

Huge moons there wax and wane--

 

Again--again--again--

 

Every moment of the night--

 

Forever changing places--

 

And they put out the star-light

 

With the breath from their pale faces.

 

About twelve by the moon-dial

 

One more filmy than the rest

 

(A kind which, upon trial,

 

They have found to be the best)

 

Comes down--still down--and down

 

With its centre on the crown

 

Of a mountain's eminence,

 

While its wide circumference

 

In easy drapery falls

 

Over hamlets, over halls,

 

Wherever they may be--

 

O'er the strange woods--o'er the sea--

 

Over spirits on the wing--

 

Over every drowsy thing--

 

And buries them up quite

 

In a labyrinth of light--

 

And then, how deep!--O, deep!

 

Is the passion of their sleep.

 

In the morning they arise,

 

And their moony covering

 

Is soaring in the skies,

 

With the tempests as they toss,

 

Like--almost any thing--

 

Or a yellow Albatross.

 

They use that moon no more

 

For the same end as before--

 

Videlicet a tent--

 

Which I think extravagant:

 

Its atomies, however,

 

Into a shower dissever,

 

Of which those butterflies,

 

Of Earth, who seek the skies,

 

And so come down again

 

(Never-contented thing!)

 

Have brought a specimen

 

Upon their quivering wings.

________

The End | Go to top

The Lake

In spring of youth it was my lot

 

To haunt of the wide world a spot

 

The which I could not love the less--

 

So lovely was the loneliness

 

Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,

 

And the tall pines that towered around.

But when the Night had thrown her pall

 

Upon the spot, as upon all,

 

And the mystic wind went by

 

Murmuring in melody--

 

Then--ah, then, I would awake

 

To the terror of the lone lake.

Yet that terror was not fright,

 

But a tremulous delight--

 

A feeling not the jewelled mine

 

Could teach or bribe me to define--

 

Nor Love--although the Love were thine.

Death was in that poisonous wave,

 

And in its gulf a fitting grave

 

For him who thence could solace bring

 

To his lone imagining--

 

Whose solitary soul could make

 

An Eden of that dim lake.

________

The End | Go to top

Evening Star

'Twas noontide of summer,

 

And midtime of night,

 

And stars, in their orbits,

 

Shone pale, through the light

 

Of the brighter, cold moon.

 

'Mid planets her slaves,

 

Herself in the Heavens,

 

Her beam on the waves.

I gazed awhile

 

On her cold smile;

 

Too cold--too cold for me--

 

There passed, as a shroud,

 

A fleecy cloud,

 

And I turned away to thee,

 

Proud Evening Star,

 

In thy glory afar

 

And dearer thy beam shall be;

 

For joy to my heart

 

Is the proud part

 

Thou bearest in Heaven at night,

 

And more I admire

 

Thy distant fire,

 

Than that colder, lowly light.

________

The End | Go to top

Imitation

A dark unfathomed tide

 

Of interminable pride--

 

A mystery, and a dream,

 

Should my early life seem;

 

I say that dream was fraught

 

With a wild and waking thought

 

Of beings that have been,

 

Which my spirit hath not seen,

 

Had I let them pass me by,

 

With a dreaming eye!

 

Let none of earth inherit

 

That vision on my spirit;

 

Those thoughts I would control,

 

As a spell upon his soul:

 

For that bright hope at last

 

And that light time have past,

 

And my wordly rest hath gone

 

With a sigh as it passed on:

 

I care not though it perish

 

With a thought I then did cherish.

________

The End | Go to top

The Happiest Day

I.

The happiest day--the happiest hour

 

My seared and blighted heart hath known,

 

The highest hope of pride and power,

 

I feel hath flown.

II.

Of power! said I? Yes! such I ween

 

But they have vanished long, alas!

 

The visions of my youth have been--

 

But let them pass.

III.

And pride, what have I now with thee?

 

Another brow may ev'n inherit

 

The venom thou hast poured on me--

 

Be still my spirit!

IV.

The happiest day--the happiest hour

 

Mine eyes shall see--have ever seen

 

The brightest glance of pride and power

 

I feel have been:

V.

But were that hope of pride and power

 

Now offered with the pain

 

Ev'n then I felt--that brightest hour

 

I would not live again:

VI.

For on its wing was dark alloy

 

And as it fluttered--fell

 

An essence--powerful to destroy

 

A soul that knew it well.

________

The End | Go to top

Dreams

Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!

 

My spirit not awakening, till the beam

 

Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.

 

Yes! though that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,

 

'Twere better than the cold reality

 

Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,

 

And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,

 

A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.

 

But should it be--that dream eternally

 

Continuing--as dreams have been to me

 

In my young boyhood--should it thus be given,

 

'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.

 

For I have revelled when the sun was bright

 

I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light

 

And loveliness,--have left my very heart