In terror she spoke, letting sink her
Wings until they trailed in the dust; In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust, Till 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 sibyllic splendor is beaming
With hope and in beauty to-night:
See, it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming, And be sure it will lead us aright: We safely may trust to a gleaming That cannot but guide us aright, Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."
Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom, And conquered her scruples and gloom; And we passed to the end of the vista, But were stopped by the door of a tomb,
By the door of a legended tomb; And I said "What is written, sweet sister, On the door of this legended tomb ?" She replied "Ulalume
The sixth; he burst five buttons off, And tumbled in a fit.
Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye, I watched that wretched man, And since, I never dare to write As funny as I can.
Aн, Clemence! when I saw thee last Trip down the Rue de Seine,
And turning, when thy form had past, I said, "We meet again,"
I dreamed not in that idle glance Thy latest image came,
And only left to memory's trance A shadow and a name.
The few strange words my lips had taught Thy timid voice to speak,
Their gentler signs, which often brought Fresh roses to thy cheek, The trailing of thy long loose hair Bent o'er my couch of pain,
All, all returned, more sweet, more fair; Oh, had we met again!
I walked where saint and virgin keep The vigil lights of Heaven,
I knew that thou hadst woes to weep, And sins to be forgiven;
I watched where Genevieve was laid, I knelt by Mary's shrine, Beside me low, soft voices prayed; Alas! but where was thine?
And when the morning sun was bright, When wind and wave were calm, And flamed, in thousand-tinted light, The rose of Notre Dame,
I wandered through the haunts of men, From Boulevard to Quai, Till, frowning o'er Saint Etienne, The Pantheon's shadow lay.
In vain, in vain; we meet no more, Nor dream what fates befall; And long upon the stranger's shore My voice on thee may call,
When years have clothed the line in moss That tells thy name and days,
And withered, on thy simple cross,
The wreaths of Père-la-Chaise !
THE wreath that star-crowned Shelley gave Is lying on thy Roman grave, Yet on its turf young April sets Her store of slender violets;
Though all the Gods their garlands shower, I too may bring one purple flower. Alas! what blossom shall I bring, That opens in my Northern spring? The garden beds have all run wild, So trim when I was yet a child; Flat plantains and unseemly stalks Have crept across the gravel walks; The vines are dead, long, long ago, The almond buds no longer blow. No more upon its mound I see The azure, plume-bound fleur-de-lis; Where once the tulips used to show, In straggling tufts the pansies grow; The grass has quenched my white-rayed gem,
The flowering "Star of Bethlehem," Though its long blade of glossy green And pallid stripe may still be seen. Nature, who treads her nobles down, And gives their birthright to the clown, Has sown her base-born weedy things Above the garden's queens and kings. Yet one sweet flower of ancient race Springs in the old familiar place. When snows were melting down the vale, And Earth unlaced her icy mail, And March his stormy trumpet blew, And tender green came peeping through,
I loved the earliest one to seek That broke the soil with emerald beak, And watch the trembling bells so blue Spread on the column as it grew.
Meek child of earth! thou wilt not
The sweet, dead poet's holy name;
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