Alas for the beautiful guesses
That live in a poet’s rhyme—
’Tis only the bell of the factory
Tolling its woe sublime;
And the wind is the ghostly ringer,
Ringing the midnight chime.
Toll, mournful bell of the tempest,
Through my dreams by sleep unblest;
My bosom is throbbing as madly
To surges of wild unrest—
E’en as thy heart of iron
Is beating thy brazen breast!
[May-Thalia.]
To Thomas Hempstead.
Thy lay—a sweet sung bridal hymn,
Wedding the Old year to the New,
’Mid starry buds, and silver dew,
And brooks, and birds in woodlands dim—
That touched the hidden veins of thought
With the electric force of strife,
Thrilled the dumb marble of my life
Unto a perfect beauty wrought.
And straight, unclasping from my brow
The thorny crown of lost delight,
The solemn grandeur of the night
Flashed on me from old years, as now.
The budding of my days is past!
And May sits weeping in the shade
The weeds on April’s grave have made,
Blown slantwise in the sobbing blast.
Ah me! but in the Poet’s heart
Some pools of troubled water lie!
The hidden founts of agony,
That keep the better springs apart.
What comfort is there in the Earth!
What height, or depth, where we may hide
Our life long anguish, and abide
The ripening unto newer birth!