FAIRY-LAND. DIM vales--and shadowy floods— Whose forms we can't discover For the tears that drip all over— Huge moons there wax and wane Again—again—again— Every moment of the night— For ever changing places— And they put out the star-light With the breath from their pale faces. About twelve by the moon-dial One more filmy than the rest (A kind, which, upon trial, They have found to be the best) Comes down--still down-and down With its centre on the crown Wherever they may be― O'er the strange woods-o'er the sea Over spirits on the wing Over every drowsy thing And buries them up quite In a labyrinth of light- Is the passion of their sleep. In the morning they arise, And their moony covering Is soaring in the skies, With the tempests as they toss, Like almost anything Or a yellow Albatross. They use that moon no more For the same end as before Videlicet a tent Which I think extravagant: Its atomies, however, Into a shower dissever, Of which those butterflies Of Earth, who seek the skies, And so come down again, The which I could not love the less- Of a wild lake, with black rock bound, And the tall pines that towered around. But when the Night had thrown her pall Then-ah, then, I would awake To the terror of the lone lake. Yet that terror was not fright. But a tremulous delight— A feeling not the jewelled mine Could teach or bribe me to define Nor Love-although the Love were thine. Death was in that poisonous wave, And in its gulf a fitting grave For him who thence could solace bring To his lone imagining— Whose solitary soul could make An Eden of that dim lake. |