“Avaunt! to-night my heart is light.  No dirge will I upraise,
  But waft the angel on her flight with a paean of old days! 
  Let no bell toll!—­lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
  Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damned Earth. 
  To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven—­
  From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven—­
  From grief and groan to a golden throne beside the King of Heaven.”

1844.

* * * * *

TO ONE IN PARADISE,

  Thou wast that all to me, love,
    For which my soul did pine—­
  A green isle in the sea, love,
    A fountain and a shrine,
  All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
  And all the flowers were mine.

  Ah, dream too bright to last! 
    Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
  But to be overcast! 
    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
    The light of Life is o’er! 
  “No more—­no more—­no more”—­
  (Such language holds the solemn sea
    To the sands upon the shore)
  Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
    Or the stricken eagle soar!

  And all my days are trances,
    And all my nightly dreams
  Are where thy dark eye glances,
    And where thy footstep gleams—­
  In what ethereal dances,
    By what eternal streams!

  Alas! for that accursed time
    They bore thee o’er the billow,
  From love to titled age and crime,
    And an unholy pillow! 
  From me, and from our misty clime,
    Where weeps the silver willow!

1835

* * * * *

THE COLISEUM.

  Type of the antique Rome!  Rich reliquary
  Of lofty contemplation left to Time
  By buried centuries of pomp and power! 
  At length—­at length—­after so many days
  Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst,
  (Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,)
  I kneel, an altered and an humble man,
  Amid thy shadows, and so drink within
  My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory!

  Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld! 
  Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night! 
  I feel ye now—­I feel ye in your strength—­
  O spells more sure than e’er Judaean king
  Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane! 
  O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee
  Ever drew down from out the quiet stars!