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.
TO F-S S. O-D.
Thou wouldst be loved?-then let thy heart From its present pathway part not! Being everything which now thou art, Be nothing which thou art not. So with the world thy gentle ways, Thy grace, thy more than beauty, Shall be an endless theme of praise, And love-a simple duty.
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.
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.
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
Have gone to their eternal rest.
Their shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that 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 marvelous 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 gayly-jeweled 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.
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 molders 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!
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