Alone

From childhood's hour I have not been 
As others were — I have not seen 
As others saw — I could not bring 
My passions from a common spring — 
From the same source I have not taken 
My sorrow — I could not awaken 
My heart to joy at the same tone — 
And all I lov'd — I lov'd alone — 
Then — in my childhood — in the dawn 
Of a most stormy life — was drawn 
From ev'ry depth of good and ill 
The mystery which binds me still — 
From the torrent, or the fountain — 
From the red cliff of the mountain — 
From the sun that 'round me roll'd 
In its autumn tint of gold — 
From the lightning in the sky 
As it pass'd me flying by — 
From the thunder, and the storm — 
And the cloud that took the form 
(When the rest of Heaven was blue) 
Of a demon in my view —


Irene

'T is now (so sings the soaring moon) 
Midnight in the sweet month of June, 
When winged visions love to lie 
Lazily upon beauty's eye, 
Or worse — upon her brow to dance 
In panoply of old romance, 
Till thoughts and locks are left, alas! 
A ne'er-to-be untangled mass. 
An influence dewy, drowsy, dim, 
Is dripping from that golden rim; 
Grey towers are mouldering into rest, 
Wrapping the fog around their breast: 
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake 
A conscious slumber seems to take, 
And would not for the world awake:

The rosemary sleeps upon the grave — 
The lily lolls upon the wave — 
And a million bright pines to and fro, 
Are rocking lullabies as they go, 
To the lone oak that reels with bliss, 
Nodding above the dim abyss. 
All beauty sleeps: and lo! where lies 
With casement open to the skies, 
Irene, with her destinies! 
Thus hums the moon within her ear, 
"O lady sweet! how camest thou here? 
"Strange are thine eyelids — strange thy dress! 
"And strange thy glorious length of tress! 
"Sure thou art come o'er far-off seas, 
"A wonder to our desert trees! 
"Some gentle wind hath thought it right 
"To open thy window to the night, 
"And wanton airs from the tree-top, 
"Laughingly thro' the lattice drop, 
"And wave this crimson canopy, 
"Like a banner o'er thy dreaming eye! 
"Lady, awake! lady awake! 
"For the holy Jesus' sake!

"For strangely — fearfully in this hall 
"My tinted shadows rise and fall!" 
. 
The lady sleeps: the dead all sleep — 
At least as long as Love doth weep: 
Entranc'd, the spirit loves to lie 
As long as — tears on Memory's eye: 
But when a week or two go by, 
And the light laughter chokes the sigh, 
Indignant from the tomb doth take 
Its way to some remember'd lake, 
Where oft — in life — with friends — it went 
To bathe in the pure element, 
And there, from the untrodden grass, 
Wreathing for its transparent brow 
Those flowers that say (ah hear them now!) 
To the night-winds as they pass, 
"Ai ! ai ! alas ! — alas!" 
Pores for a moment, ere it go, 
On the clear waters there that flow, 
Then sinks within (weigh'd down by wo) 
Th' uncertain, shadowy heaven below. 

The lady sleeps: oh! may her sleep 
As it is lasting so be deep — 
No icy worms about her creep: 
I pray to God that she may lie 
Forever with as calm an eye, 
That chamber chang'd for one more holy — 
That bed for one more melancholy. 
Far in the forest, dim and old, 
For her may some tall vault unfold, 
Against whose sounding door she hath thrown, 
In childhood, many an idle stone — 
Some tomb, which oft hath flung its black 
And vampyre-winged pannels back, 
Flutt'ring triumphant o'er the palls 
Of her old family funerals.


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.



The City In The Sea

Lo ! Death has reared himself a throne 
In a strange city lying alone 
Far down within the dim West, 
Wherethe good and the bad and the worst and the best 
Have gone to their eternal rest. 
There 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 scultured ivy and stone flowers — 
Up many and many a marvellous shrine 
Whose wrιathed 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 gaily-jewelled 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 thrown 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.


A Dream

In visions of the dark night 
I have dreamed of joy departed -- 
But a waking dreams 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 Truths day-star ? 


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 within 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?.


The Lake

In youth's spring, 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 wind would pass me by 
In its stilly melody, 
My infant spirit would awake 
To the terror of the lone lake. 
Yet that terror was not fright — 
But a tremulous delight, 
And a feeling undefin'd, 
Springing from a darken'd mind. 
Death was in that poison'd wave 
And in its gulf a fitting grave 
For him who thence could solace bring 
To his dark imagining; 
Whose wild'ring thought could even make 
An Eden of that dim lake.

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