I saw thee half reclining; while the moon roses? No footsteps stirred: the hated world all slept, Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven!-oh, God! How my heart beats in coupling those two words!) Save only thee and me. I paused-I looked- All-all expired save thee-save less than thou: I saw but them-they were the world to me. Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres! But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight, Into a western couch of thunder-cloud; And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained. They would not go-they never yet have gone. Lighting my lonely pathway home that night, They have not left me (as my hopes have) since They follow me-they lead me through the years They are my ministers-yet I their slave. Their office is to illumine and enkindle- And sanctified in their elysian fire. They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope), ΤΟ Not long ago, the writer of these lines, A thought arose within the human brain By angels dreaming in the moonlit "dew That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill, Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart, Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of thought, Richer, far wilder, far diviner visions Than even the seraph harper, Israfel, (Who has "the sweetest voice of all God's creatures,'') Could hope to utter. And I my spells are broken. The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand. With thy dear name as text, though bidden by thee, I cannot write-I cannot speak or think- To where the prospect terminates-thee only. ULALUME. The skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crisped and sere- It was light in the lonesome October It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid region of WeirIt was down by the dank tarn of Auber In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. Here once, through an alley Titanic, Of cypress, I roamed with my soul- Their sulphurous currents down Mount Yaanek Our talk had been serious and sober, But our thoughts they were palsied and sere Our memories were treacherous and sere For we knew not the month was October, And we marked not the night of the year— (Ah, night of all nights in the year!) We noted not the dim lake of Auber (Though once we had journeyed down here) Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber, Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. And now, as the night was senescent Astarte's bediamonded crescent Distinct with its duplicate horn. And I said—“She is warmer than Dian: She has seen that the tears are not dry on These cheeks, where the worm never dies, And has come past the stars of the Lion To point us the path to the skies— To the Lethean peace of the skies— Come up, in despite of the Lion, To shine on us with her bright eyesCome up through the lair of the Lion, With love in her luminous eyes. But Psyche, uplifting her finger, Said "Sadly this star I mistrustHer pallor I strangely mistrust:Oh, hasten!-oh, let us not linger! Oh, fly!-let us fly!-for we must." In terror she spoke, letting sink her Wings until they trailed in the dustIn agony sobbed letting sink her Plumes till they trailed in the dustTill they sorrowfully trailed in the dust I replied "This is nothing but dreaming: Let us on by this tremulous light! Let us bathe in this crystalline light! Its Sybilic splendor is beaming With Hope and in Beauty to-night:- Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming |