FAIRY-LAND. DIM vales-and shadowy floods And cloudy-looking woods, 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— Forever 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 Of a mountain's eminence, While its wide circumference In easy drapery falls Over hamlets, over halls, 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— And then, how deep !-O, deep! 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, 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, (Never contented things!) Have brought a specimen Upon their quivering wings. In spring of youth it was my lot To haunt of the wide world a spot The which I could not love the less- Of a wild lake, with black rock bound, 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. |