They slept on the abyss without a surge
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, The moon their mistress had expired before; The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air, And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need Of aid from them-She was the universe.
A FACT LITERALLY RENDERED.
I STOOD beside the grave of him who blazed The comet of a season, and I saw
The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed With not the less of sorrow and of awe On that neglected turf and quiet stone, With name no clearer than the names unknown, Which lay unread around it: and I ask'd The Gardener of that ground, why it might be That for this plant strangers his memory task'd Through the thick deaths of half a century; And thus he answer'd-" Well, I do not know Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so;
"He died before my day of Sextonship, "And I had not the digging of this grave." And is this all? I thought,—and do we rip The veil of Immortality? and crave
I know not what of honour and of light Through unborn ages, to endure this blight? So soon and so successless? As I said, The Architect of all on which we tread, For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay To extricate remembrance from the clay, Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought Were it not that all life must end in one, Of which we are but dreamers;-as he caught As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun, Thus spoke he,-" I believe the man of whom "You wot, who lies in this selected tomb, "Was a most famous writer in his day,
"And therefore travellers step from out their way "To pay him honour,—and myself whate'er "Your honour pleases,"-then most pleased I shook From out my pocket's avaricious nook
Some certain coins of silver, which as 'twere Perforce I gave this man, though I could spare So much but inconveniently;-Ye smile, I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while, Because my homely phrase the truth would tell. You are the fools, not I-for I did dwell With a deep thought, and with a soften'd eye, On that Old Sexton's natural homily,
In which there was Obscurity and Fame, The Glory and the Nothing of a Name.
OUR life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world, And a wide realm of wild reality,
And dreams in their developement have breath, And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy; They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, They take a weight from off our waking toils, They do divide our being; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time, And look like heralds of eternity;
They pass like spirits of the past, they speak Like sybils of the future; they have power— The tyranny of pleasure and of pain; They make us what we were not-what they will, And shake us with the vision that's gone by, The dread of vanish'd shadows-Are they so? Is not the past all shadow? What are they? Creations of the mind?-The mind can make
Substance, and people planets of its own With beings brighter than have been, and give A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh. I would recall a vision which I dream'd Perchance in sleep-for in itself a thought, A slumbering thought, is capable of years, And curdles a long life into one hour.
I saw two beings in the hues of youth Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill, Green and of mild declivity, the last As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such, Save that there was no sea to lave its base, But a most living landscape, and the wave Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men Scatter'd at intervals, and wreathing smoke Arising from such rustic roofs;-the hill Was crown'd with a peculiar diadem Of trees, in circular array, so fix'd,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man : These two, a maiden and a youth, were there Gazing-the one on all that was beneath Fair as herself-but the boy gazed on her; And both were young, and one was beautiful: And both were young-yet not alike in youth. As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge The maid was on the eve of womanhood; The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him; he had look'd Upon it till it could not pass away;
He had no breath, no being, but in hers; She was his voice; he did not speak to her, But trembled on her words; she was his sight, For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers, Which colour'd all his objects:-he had ceased To live within himself; she was his life, The ocean to the river of his thoughts, Which terminated all: upon a tone,
A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow, And his cheek change tempestuously-his heart 60 Unknowing of its cause of agony.
But she in these fond feelings had no share : Her sighs were not for him; to her he was Even as a brother-but no more: 'twas much, For brotherless she was, save in the name Her infant friendship had bestow'd on him; Herself the solitary scion left
Of a time-honour'd race.--It was a name Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not-and why? Time taught him a deep answer-when she loved 70 Another; even now she loved another,
And on the summit of that hill she stood Looking afar if yet her lover's steed
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.
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