One half my life is overpast;
The other half I contemplate—
Meseems the past doth but forecast
A darker future state.
Sick to the heart of that which makes
Me hope and struggle and desire,
The aspiration here that aches
With ineffectual fire;
While inwardly I know the lack,
The insufficiency of power,
Each past day's retrospect makes black
Each morrow's coming hour.
Now in my youth would I could die!—
As others love to live,—go down
Into the grave without a sigh,
Oblivious of renown!
THE FOREST OF DREAMS.
I.
Where was I last Friday night?—
Within the forest of dark dreams
Following the blur of a goblin-light,
That led me over ugly streams,
Whereon the scum of the spawn was spread,
And the blistered slime, in stagnant seams;
Where the weed and the moss swam black and dead,
Like a drowned girl's hair in the ropy ooze:
And the jack-o'-lantern light that led,
Flickered the fox-fire trees o'erhead,
And the owl-like things at airy cruise.
II.
Where was I last Friday night?—
Within the forest of dark dreams
Following a form of shadowy white
With my own wild face it seems.
Did a raven's wing just flap my hair?
Or a web-winged bat brush by my face?
Or the hand of—something I did not dare
Look round to see in that obscene place?
Where the boughs, with leaves a-devil's-dance,
And the thorn-tree bush, where the wind made moan,
Had more than a strange significance
Of life and of evil not their own.