That she might deem it nought beside The moment's converse; in her eyes I read, perhaps too carelessly A mingled feeling with my ownThe flush on her bright cheek, to me Seem'd to become a queenly throne Too well that I should let it be Light in the wilderness alone. I wrapp'd myself in grandeur then Had thrown her mantle over me- Lion ambition is chain'd down- Look 'round thee now on Samarcand!Is she not queen of Earth? her pride Above all cities? in her hand Their destinies ? in all beside Of glory which the world hath known Stands she not nobly and alone? Falling her veriest stepping-stone Shall form the pedestal of a throneAnd who her sovereign? Timour-he Whom the astonished people saw Striding o'er empires haughtily A diadem'd outlaw ! VOL. II.-6. O, human love! thou spirit given, With music of so strange a sound When Hope, the eagle that tower'd, could see The glory of the summer sun. So often lovely, and will list To the sound of the coming darkness (known To those whose spirits harken) as one Who, in a dream of night, would fly What tho' the moon-the white moon And boyhood is a summer sun I reach'd my home-my home no more→ And, tho' my tread was soft and low, Father, I firmly do believe I know for Death who comes for me From regions of the blest afar, No mote may shun-no tiniest fly- How was it that Ambition crept, Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt то THE bowers whereat, in dreams, I see The wantonest singing birds, Are lips and all thy melody Of lip-begotten words— Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrined Then desolately fall, O God! on my funereal mind Like starlight on a pall— Thy heart-thy heart!—I wake and sigh, And sleep to dream till day Of the truth that gold can never buy- A DREAM. IN visions of the dark night I have dreamed of joy departedBut a waking dream of life and light Hath left me broken-hearted. Ah! what is not a dream by day That holy dream-that holy dream, What though that light, thro' storm and night, So trembled from afar What could there be more purely bright In Truth's day-star? |