"Dream of my soul!" he said, "thus softly stealing
"From thine empyrean o'er my aching sense,
"Pouring thy balm on my pierced heart, and healing
"Cold sorrow's wounds with ravishment intense;
"Fold still thy wings, and thus in light revealing
"Thine angel charms, flee ne'er away from hence."
Still on his name she call'd with swooning sighs,
And hands convulsive prest, and upturn'd eyes.
LXXV.
"It is my love," he said, "by death set free
"From cruel bonds that sever'd our true vows,
"Thus from the piteous tomb return'd to me,
"In white array with blossoms on her brows.
"Ah! blessed is love's immortality,
"That e'en the grave with softest charms endows;
"And blessed thou, mine own, alive or dead,
"That to this yearning heart once more hast fled.
LXXVI.
Entrancëd still he wander'd to the gate,
Where stood Alcesté in sad weary plight,
Sore press'd with sentience of her hapless fate,
Weeping, nigh hopeless, in the pale moonlight.
Tarried he there in strange delicious strait,
Lapt in the wonder of his dreaming sight;
Then opening wide his arms in raptured prayer,
Her gentle spirit swoon'd and nestled there.
LXXVII.
O Paradise! to waken from a dream,
A sleep-revealment of delights, and find
The rosy fancies, beauteous though they seem,
Reality, and in our fond arms twined;
Truth haloed by imagination's beam,
And heaven and earth in one sweet birth combined.
Thus Julian gazed upon her fainting form,
Robed for the grave yet with existence warm.