But see, amid the mimic rout A crawling shape intrude! A blood-red thing that writhes from out It writhes!—it writhes!-with mortal pangs The mimes become its food, And the angels sob at vermin fangs 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. Od. THOU wouldst be loved ?-then let thy heart Thy grace, thy more than beauty, TO ONE IN PARADISE. THOU wast that all to me, love, For which my soul did pine- All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, 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! "No more-no more-no more-" (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 drys are trances, And all my nightly dreams In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams THE VALLEY OF UNREST. Once it smiled a silent dell . Where the people did not dwell; Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven Over the violets there that lie In myriad types of the human eye- And weep above a nameless grave! They weep-from off their delicate stems THE CITY IN THE SEA. Lo! 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 bes Have gone to their eternal rest. There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!) Resemble nothing that is ours. No rays from the holy heaven come down Gleams up the pinnacles far and free- The viol, the violet, and the vine. |