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. 1827. SPIRITS OF THE DEAD


                                 1
     Thy soul shall find itself alone
     ‘Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone—
     Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
     Into thine hour of secrecy:
                                 2
     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 then overshadow thee: be still. 3
     For the night—tho’ clear—shall frown—
     And the stars shall look not 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 for ever:
                               4
     Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish—
     Now are visions ne’er to vanish—
     From thy spirit shall they pass
     No more—like dew-drop from the grass:
                              5
     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!—

      1827. 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? 1827. 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
     Through gazing on the unquiet sky. And when an hour with calmer wings
     Its down upon thy 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. 1829. FAIRY-LAND


     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 things!) Have brought a specimen
     Upon their quivering wings. 1831. THE LAKE —— TO——


     In spring of youth it was my lot
     To haunt of the wide earth 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 tower’d around. But when the Night had thrown her pall
     Upon that 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. 1827. 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. 1827. “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. 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!