’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 splendour 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 reach’d my home—my home no more—
         For all had flown who made it so—
     I pass’d 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,
         A 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 ev’ry 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 trelliced 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? 1829. TO HELEN


     Helen, thy beauty is to me
         Like those Nicean barks of yore,
     That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
         The weary way-worn wanderer bore
         To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam,
         Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
     Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
         To the glory that was Greece,
     And the grandeur that was Rome. Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
         How statue-like I me thee stand,
     The agate lamp within thy hand! Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
         Are Holy-land! 1831. 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
     Uneasily, from morn till even,
     Over the violets there that lie
     In myriad types of the human eye—
     Over the lilies there 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. 1831. 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 all the 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. * And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lut, and
  who has the sweetest voice of all God’s creatures.—KORAN. But the skies that angel trod,
         Where deep thoughts are a duty—
     Where Love’s a grown 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 unimpassion’d song:
     To thee the laurels belong
         Best bard, because the wisest! Merrily live, and long! The extacies 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. 1836. TO ——


                     1
     The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see
         The wantonest singing birds
     Are lips—and all thy melody
         Of lip-begotten words—
                      2
     Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrin’d
         Then desolately fall,
     O! God! on my funereal mind
         Like starlight on a pall—
                       3
     Thy heart—_thy_ heart!—I wake and sigh,
         And sleep to dream till day
     Of truth that gold can never buy—
         Of the trifles that it may. 1829. TO ——


     I heed not that my earthly lot
         Hath-little of Earth in it—
     That years of love have been forgot
     In the hatred of a minute:—
     I mourn not that the desolate
         Are happier, sweet, than I,
     But that you sorrow for my fate
     Who am a passer-by. 1829. 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 my heart, as in thy stream,
         Her image deeply lies—
     His heart which trembles at the beam
         Of her soul-searching eyes. 1829.