"More dimly than a day-appearing Round the high moon in a bright sea of dream, air; The ghost of a forgotten form of sleep; And more did follow, with exulting A light of heaven, whose half-extin hymn, "Before the chariot had begun to climb The opposing steep of that mysterious dell, "Shadow to fall from leaf and stone; Behold a wonder worthy of the rhyme the crew Seemed in that light, like atomies to "Of him who from the lowest depths The sphere whose light is melody to To reassume the delegated power, "Phantoms diffused around; and some did fling On fairest bosoms and the sunniest hair, Shadows of shadows, yet unlike them- Fell, and were melted by the youthful selves, Behind them; some like caglets on the wing glow "Which they extinguished; and, like tears, they were "Were lost in the white day; others A veil to those from whose faint lids like elves Danced in a thousand unimagined shapes Upon the sunny streams and grassy shelves; they rained In drops of sorrow. I became aware "Of whence those forms proceeded which thus stained "And others sate chattering like restless The track in which we moved. apes On vulgar hands, Some made a cradle of the ermined capes "Of kingly mantles; some across the tiar Of pontiffs sate like vultures; others played Under the crown which girt with pire brief space, After From every form the beauty slowly waned; "From every firmest limb and fairest face The strength and freshness fell like dust, and left The action and the shape without the grace em "Of life. The marble brow of youth was cleft With care; and in those eyes where once hope shone, Desire, like a lioness bereft "Of her last cub, glared ere it died; each one Of that great crowd sent forth incessantly "Was old, the joy which waked like Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon, And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven. Pause not! The time is past! Every voice cries, Away! Tempt not with one last tear thy friend's ungentle mood: Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy stay: Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude. Away, away! to thy sad and silent home; Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth; Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come, And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth. The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around thine head: The blooms of dewy spring shall gleam beneath thy feet: But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that binds the dead, THERE IS NO WORK, NOR DEVICE, NOR KNOWLEDGE, NOR WISDOM, IN THE GRAVE, WHITHER THOU GOEST. Ecclesiastes. THE pale, the cold, and the moony smile A SUMMER EVENING CHURCH Which the meteor beam of a starless night Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle, Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light, Is the flame of life so fickle and wan That flits round our steps till their strength is gone. YARD, O man! hold thee on in courage of sou! In duskier braids around the languid Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way, eyes of day: Silence and twilight, unbeloved of men, |