Than the eyes of the radiant girl!
That the vapor can make
With the moon-tints of purple and pearl, Can vie with the modest Eulalie’s most unregarded curl-Can compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie’s most humble and careless curl.
Now Doubt-now Pain
Come never again,
For her soul gives me sigh for sigh, And all day long
Shines, bright and strong,
Astarte within the sky,
While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye-While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.
Evening
Star
‘Twas noontide of summer,
And mid-time of night;
And stars, in their orbits,
Shone pale, thro’ the light
Of the brighter, cold moon,
‘Mid planets her slaves,
Herself in the Heavens,
Her beam on the waves.
I gazed awhile
On her cold smile;
Too cold-too cold for me—
There pass’d, as a shroud,
A fleecy cloud,
And I turned away to thee,
Proud Evening Star,
In thy glory afar,
And dearer thy beam shall be;
For joy to my heart
Is the proud part
Thou bearest in Heaven at night,
And more I admire
Thy distant fire,
Than that colder, lowly light.
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 starlight
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,
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,
(Never-contented things!)
Have brought a specimen
Upon their quivering wings.
For Annie
Thank Heaven! the crisis—
The danger is past,
And the lingering illness
Is over at last—
And the fever called “Living”
Is conquered at last.
Sadly, I know
I am shorn of my strength,
And no muscle I move
As I lie at full length—
But no matter!-I feel
I am better at length.
And I rest so composedly,
Now, in my bed
That any beholder
Might fancy me dead—
Might start at beholding me,
Thinking me dead.
The moaning and groaning,
The sighing and sobbing,
Are quieted now,
With that horrible throbbing
At heart:- ah, that horrible,
Horrible throbbing!
The sickness-the nausea—
The pitiless pain—
Have ceased, with the fever
That maddened my brain—
With the fever called “Living”
That burned in my brain.
And oh! of all tortures
That torture the worst
Has abated-the terrible
Torture of thirst
For the naphthaline river
Of Passion accurst:-
I have drunk of a water
That quenches all thirst:-
Of a water that flows,
With a lullaby sound,
From a spring but a very few
Feet under ground—
From a cavern not very far
Down under ground.
And ah! let it never
Be foolishly said
That my room it is gloomy
And narrow my bed;
For man never slept
In a different bed—
And, to sleep, you must slumber
In just such a bed.
My tantalized spirit
Here blandly reposes,
Forgetting, or never
Regretting its roses—
Its old agitations
Of myrtles and roses:
For now, while so quietly
Lying, it fancies
A holier odor
About it, of pansies—
A rosemary odor,
Commingled with pansies—
With rue and the beautiful
Puritan pansies.
And so it lies happily,
Bathing in many
A dream of the truth
And the beauty of Annie—
Drowned in a bath
Of the tresses of Annie.
She tenderly kissed me,
She fondly caressed,
And then I fell gently
To sleep on her breast—
Deeply to sleep
From the heaven of her breast.
When the light was extinguished,
She covered me warm,
And she prayed to the angels
To keep me from harm—
To the queen of the angels
To shield me from harm.
And I lie so composedly,
Now, in my bed,
(Knowing her love)
That you fancy me dead—
And I rest so contentedly,
Now, in my bed,
(With her love at my breast)
That you fancy me dead—
That you shudder to look at me,
Thinking me dead.
But my heart it is brighter
Than all of the many
Stars in the sky,
For it sparkles with Annie—
It glows with the light
Of the love of my Annie—
With the thought of the light
Of the eyes of my Annie.
“The
Happiest Day”
The happiest day — the happiest hour My sear’d and blighted heart hath known, The highest hope of pride and power, I feel hath flown.
Of power! said I? yes! such I ween; But they have vanish’d long, alas!
The visions of my youth have been—
But let them pass.
And, pride, what have I now with thee?
Another brow may even inherit
The venom thou hast pour’d on me
Be still, my spirit!
The happiest day — the happiest hour Mine eyes shall see — have ever seen, The brightest glance of pride and power, I feel-have been:
But were that hope of pride and power Now offer’d with the pain
Even then I felt — that brightest hour I would not live again:
For on its wing was dark alloy,
And, as it flutter’d — fell
An essence — powerful to destroy
A soul that knew it well.
The Haunted
Palace
In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace—
Radiant palace-reared its head.
In the monarch Thought’s dominion—
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,
(This-all this-was in the olden
Time long ago,)
And every gentle air that dallied, In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, A winged odor went away.
Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute’s well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting (Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well-befitting, The ruler of the realm was seen.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing, And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch’s high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn!- for never morrow Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
And travellers, now, within that valley, Through the red-litten windows see Vast forms, that move fantastically To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river, Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh-but smile no more.
Hymn
At morn-at noon-at twilight dim—
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
In joy and woe-in good and ill—
Mother of God, be with me still!
When the hours flew brightly by,
And not a cloud obscured the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be, Thy grace did guide to thine and thee; Now, when storms of Fate o’ercast
Darkly my Present and my Past,
Let my Future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine!
Hymn
to Aristogeiton and Harmodius
Translation
from the Greek.
I.
Wreathed in myrtle, my sword I’ll conceal Like those champions devoted and brave, When they plunged in the tyrant their steel, And to Athens deliverance gave.
II.
Beloved heroes! your deathless souls roam In the joy breathing isles of the blest; Where the mighty of old have their home –
Where Achilles and Diomed rest.
III.
In fresh myrtle my blade I’ll entwine, Like Harmodious, the gallant and good, When he made at the tutelar shrine
A libation of Tyranny’s blood.
IV.
Ye deliverers of Athens from shame!
Ye avengers of Liberty’s wrongs!
Endless ages shall cherish your fame Embalmed in their echoing songs!
Imitation
A dark unfathomed tide
Of interminable pride –
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem;
I say that dream was fraught
With a wild and waking thought
Of beings that have been,
Which my spirit hath not seen,
Had I let them pass me by,
With a dreaming eye!
Let none of earth inherit
That vision of my spirit;