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!
The mimes become its food,
And the angels sob at vermin fangs In human gore imbrued.
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 FS S. O—D.
HOU 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.
HOU 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 !
(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.
NCE 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 sunlight 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 wavefrom out their fragrant tops Eternal dews come down in drops.
They weep: - from off their delicate stems Perennial tears descend in gems.
O! 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 and the
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 sculptured ivy and stone flowers - Up many and many a marvellous shrine Whose wreathèd 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-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 scenes less hideously serene.
But low 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.
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