Their broad foundations were hid deeply down ; Death's truant would behold no more. Again And, shrinking from the day, slept the deep sleep. Thus, in a waking vision, I've essayed, Faintly, to shadow forth thy fearful semblance, No dumb disastrous mystery of fate, So hidden from us as our former selves. The broad and blinding shadow of the tomb Sinks through our souls, still gathering deeper night, And thus, by strong forgetfulness, we live. What, then, are those fair hopes that, in their birth, They are as flowers of Ind, that cannot bide That wantons through the East. We will endure. WIZARD-SONG ; FROM AN UNFINISHED DRAMATIC POEM. By the shore of the sea, the wild shore of the sea, 'Tis there, 'tis there, I love to be, When the storm hath past, with a harrowing blast, O'er the billowy wilderness dark and vast; When the sea-sepulchres disgorge Their new dead to the foaming surge, That flings its prey unto the land, And smooths their biers on the trackless sand; When the dismal wreck floats to the shore Whereon its crew shall tread no more, And the mighty ocean heaves, as though "Twere tired with the long long work of woe; When the low winds breathe the knell of the drowned, With a most bewailing sound, There let my gloomy pastime be, As one that fears not storm or sea. When new-made widows,-maids bereft The ghastly change that death has wrought To mock them, with returning beams, When all the grievous scathe is done,— SONNET I. ON SUNRISE. HAIL to thy dazzling presence! How the wide All radiance with thy blaze, far-beaming one! And shall the might of thy great shining fail? Art thou not everlasting? Can it be That thou wast born with Time, and shalt wax pale, And perish with him? Is it thy brief doom, Ere the great dawning of eternity, To sink as ashes through the boundless gloom? R |