Hung o’er the sunny world, and with the breath
Of the triumphant rose came blending thoughts of death.
By thee, sad Love! and by thy sister, Fear,
Then was the ideal robe of beauty wrought
To vail that haunting shadow, still too near,
Still ruling secretly the conqueror’s thought,
And where the board was fraught
With wine and myrtles in the summer bower,
Felt, e’en when disavow’d, a presence and a power.
But that dark night is closed: and o’er the dead,