If I could dwell Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky. FOR ANNIE. THANK Heaven! the crisis, And the fever called "Living" Sadly, I know, I am shorn of my strength, As I lie at full length- And I rest so composedly, Might fancy me dead Might start at beholding me, Thinking me dead. The moaning and groaning, Are quieted now, With that horrible throbbing At heart-ah that horrible, Horrible throbbing! The sickness-the nausea The pitiless pain Have ceased, with the fever That maddened my brainWith the fever called "Living" That burned in my brain. And oh! of all tortures That torture the worst For the napthaline river Of a water that flows With a lullaby sound Down under ground. And ah! let it never Be foolishly said That my room it is gloomy For man never slept In a different bed And, to sleep, you must slumber In just such a bed. My tantalized spirit Here blandly reposes, Forgetting or never Regretting its rosesIts old agitations Of myrtles and roses: For now, while so quietly A holier odour About it of pansies A rosemary odour Commingled with pansies- And so it lies happily, A dream of the truth And the beauty of AnnieDrowned in a bath Of the tresses of Annie. She tenderly kissed me, To sleep on her breast Deeply to sleep From the heaven of her breast. When the light was extinguished And I lie so composedly, That you fancy me dead- Now, in my bed (With her love at my breast) That you fancy me deadThat you shudder to look at me, Thinking me dead. But my heart it is brighter Than all of the many Stars in the sky, For it sparkles with Annie It glows with the light Of the love of my Annie- TO ONE IN PARADISE. THOU wast all that to me, love, For which my soul did pinegreen isle in the sea, love, A A fountain, and a shrine All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine. Ah dream too bright to last! A voice from out the future cries, "On! on!"--but o'er the past (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies Mute, motionless, aghast! For, alas! alas! with me No more-no more-no more And all my days are trances, In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams! THE SLEEPER. AT midnight, in the month of June, The rosemary nods upon the grave; Oh lady bright! can it be right- So fitfully-so fearfully Above the closed and fringed lid 'Neath which thy slumbering soul lies hid Why and what art thou dreaming here? The lady sleeps! Oh may her sleep, |