VI.
Or, when brown Autumn touched the leaves with age,
The heavens became the young Enthusiast's page
Wherein his fancy read; and they would then,
Hand locked in hand, forsake the haunts of men;
Communing with the silver queen of night,
Which, as a spirit, shone upon their sight,
Full orbed in maiden glory; and her beams
Fell on their hearts, like distant shadowed gleams
Of future joy and undefinèd bliss—
Half of another world and half of this.
Then, rapt in dreams, oft would he gazing stand,
Grasping in his her fair and trembling hand,
And thus exclaim, "Helen, when I am gone,
When that bright moon shall shine on you alone,
And but one shadow on the river fall—
Say, wilt thou then these heavenly hours recall?
Or read, upon the fair moon's smiling brow
The words we've uttered—those we utter now?
Or think, though seas divide us, I may be
Gazing upon that glorious orb with thee
At the same moment—hearing, in its rays,
The hallowed whisperings of early days!
For, oh, there is a language in its calm
And holy light, that hath a power to balm
The troubled spirit, and like memory's glass,
Make bygone happiness before us pass."