Oh, lady bright! can it be right—
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice drop-
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and out
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully-so fearfully
Above the closed and fringed lid
'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid
That, o'er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady lear, hast thou no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come o'er far-off seas,
A wond to these garden trees!
Strange 's thy pallor! strange thy dress!
Strange, a ov all, thy length of tress,
And this all solemn silentness!
The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with unopened eye,
While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!
My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
As it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold
Some vault that oft hath flung its black
And winged pannels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals-
Some sepulcher, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone-
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne'er shall force an echo more.
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin
It was the dead who groaned within.
There are some qualities-some incorporate things,
That have a double life, which thus is made A type of that twin entity which springs
From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.
There is a two-fold Silence-sea and shoreBody and soul. One dwells in lonely places, Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn
Some human memories and tearful lore, Render him terrorless: his name's "No More," He is the corporate Silence; dread him not! No power hath he of evil in himself,
But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!) Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf, That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod
No foot of man,) commend thyself to God!
A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM.
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold with my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep-while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named Night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule
From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime
Out of Space-out of Time.
Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the dews that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters-lone and dead,-
Their still waters-still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.
By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead—
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily,-
By the mountains-near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,-
By the gray woods,-by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp,-
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls
By each spot the most unholy—
In each nook most melancholy,—
There the traveler meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the Past-
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by—
White-robed forms of friends long given,
In agony, to the Earth-and Heaven.
For the heart whose woes are legion
'Tis a peaceful, soothing region-
For the spirit that walks in shadow
'Tis-oh 'tis an Eldorado!
But the traveler, traveling through it,
May not dare not openly view it;
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills its King, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named Night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.
Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers,
Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take!
How many memories of what radiant hours
At sight of thee and thine at once awake!
How many scenes of what departed bliss!
How many thoughts of what entombed
hopes!
How many visions of a maiden that is
No more no more upon thy verdant slopes! No more! alas, that magical sad sound
Transforming all! Thy charms shall please Accursed ground
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