The dew-mist broods
Heavy and low o'er field and fen,
Like gloom above the souls of men;
And through the forest solitudes
The fitful night-wind rustles by,
Breathing many a wailing sigh—
O Day! O Life!
Ending in gloom together here—
Though not one star of Hope appear,
Still through the cold bleak Future gaze,
That mocks thee with its murky haze;
Soon morn shall end the doubt, the strife,
And give unto thy weeping eyes
The far night-guarded Paradise!
A DIRGE.
Winds are sighing round the drooping eaves;
Sadly float the midnight hours away;
Dun and grey athwart the ivy-leaves,
Fall the first pale chilly tints of day,
Ah me! the weary, weary tints of day.
Soon the darkness will be past and gone;
Soon the silence spread its noiseless wing;
Sleep will strike its tent and hurry on;
Life commence its weary wandering,
Ah me! its weary, weary wandering.
Not the sighing of my lonely heart,
Not the heavy grief-clouds hanging o'er,
Not its silence can with night depart:
Gloom hangs o'er it ever, evermore,
Ah me! darkness ever, evermore.
TO MY DREAM-LOVE.
Where art thou, oh! my Beautiful? Afar
I seek thee sadly, till the day is done,
And o'er the splendour of the setting sun,
Cold, calm, and silvery, floats the evening star;
Where art thou? Ah! where art thou, hid in light
That haunts me, yet still wraps thee from my sight?
Not wholly—ah! not wholly—still Love's eyes
Trace thy dim beauty through the mystic veil,
Like the young moon that glimmers faint and pale,
At noontide through the sun-web of the skies;
But ah! I ope mine arms, and thou art gone,
And only Memory knows where thou hast shone.
Night—Night the tender, the compassionate,
Binds thee, gem-like, amid her raven hair;
I dream—I see—I feel that thou art there—
And stand all weeping at Sleep's golden gate,
Till the leaves open, and the glory streams
Down through my trancèd soul in radiant dreams.