Outside 'twere better!—Yes, I yearn
To walk the waste where sway and dip
The dark December boughs—where burn
Some late last leaves, that drip and drip
No matter where you turn.
Where sodden soil, you scarce have trod,
Fills oozy footprints—but the blind
Night there, tho' like the frown of God,
Presents no phantoms to the mind,
Like these that have o'erawed.—
The months I count: how long it seems
Since summer! summer, when with her,
There on her porch, in rainy gleams
We watched the flickering lightning stir
In heavens gray as dreams.
When all the west, a sheet of gold,
Flared,—like some Titan's opened forge,—
With storm; revealing manifold
Vast peaks of clouds with crag and gorge,
Where thunder torrents rolled.
Then came the wind; again, again
The lightning lit the world—and how
The tempest roared with rushing rain!...
We could not read.—Where is it now,
That tale of Charlemagne?
That old romance, ah me! that we
Were reading? till we heard the plunge
Of summer thunder sullenly,
And left to watch the lightning lunge,
And winds bend down each tree.—
That summer! how it built us there
A world of love and necromance!
A spirit-world, where all was fair;
An island, sleeping in a trance
Of lilied light and air.
Where every flower was a thought;
And every bird, a melody;
And every fragrance, zephyr brought,
Was but the rainbowed drapery
Of some sweet dream long sought.
O land of shadows! shadow-home,
Within my world of memories!
Around whose ruins sweeps the foam
Of sorrow's immemorial seas,
By whose dark shores I roam!
How long in your wrecked halls alone
With ghosts of joys must I remain?
Between the unknown and the known,
Still listening to the wind and rain,
And my own heart's wild moan.