STANZAS TO 1. THOUGH the day of my destiny's over, The faults which so many could find; Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted, It shrunk not to share it with me, And the love which my spirit hath painted It never hath found but in thee. 2. Then when nature around me is smiling, I do not believe it beguiling Because it reminds me of thine; And when winds are at war with the ocean, If their billows excite an emotion It is that they bear me from thee. 3. Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd, There is many a pang to pursue me: They may crush, but they shall not contemnThey may torture, but shall not subdue me— "Tis of thee that I think-not of them. 4. Though human, thou didst not deceive me, Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me, Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me, 5. Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it, Nor the war of the many with one If my soul was not fitted to prize it, 'Twas folly not sooner to shun: And if dearly that error hath cost me, And more than I once could foresee, I have found that, whatever it lost me, It could not deprive me of thee. 6. From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd, It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd In the desert a fountain is springing, In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee. DARKNESS.. I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came, and went-and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light: And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones, The palaces of crowned kings—the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed, Extinguish'd with a crash—and all was black. The flashes fell upon them; some lay down And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up With mad disquietude on the dull sky, The pall of a past world; and then again With curses cast them down upon the dust, And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd, And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes All earth was but one thought—and that was death, Of famine fed upon all entrails-men |