Thy soul shall find itself alone
  ’Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone
  Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
  Into thine hour of secrecy. 
  Be silent in that solitude
    Which is not loneliness—­for then
  The spirits of the dead who stood
    In life before thee are again
  In death around thee—­and their will
  Shall overshadow thee:  be still. 
  The night—­tho’ clear—­shall frown—­
  And the stars shall not look down
  From their high thrones in the Heaven,
  With light like Hope to mortals given—­
  But their red orbs, without beam,
  To thy weariness shall seem
  As a burning and a fever
  Which would cling to thee forever. 
  Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish—­
  Now are visions ne’er to vanish—­
  From thy spirit shall they pass
  No more—­like dew-drops from the grass. 
  The breeze—­the breath of God—­is still—­
  And the mist upon the hill
  Shadowy—­shadowy—­yet unbroken,
    Is a symbol and a token—­
    How it hangs upon the trees,
    A mystery of mysteries!

1837.

* * * * *

A DREAM.

  In visions of the dark night
    I have dreamed of joy departed—­
  But a waking dream of life and light
    Hath left me broken-hearted.

  Ah! what is not a dream by day
    To him whose eyes are cast
  On things around him with a ray
    Turned back upon the past?

  That holy dream—­that holy dream,
    While all the world were chiding,
  Hath cheered me as a lovely beam,
    A lonely spirit guiding.

  What though that light, thro’ storm and night,
    So trembled from afar—­
  What could there be more purely bright
    In Truth’s day star?

1837.

* * * * *

ROMANCE.

  Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
  With drowsy head and folded wing,
  Among the green leaves as they shake
  Far down within some shadowy lake,
  To me a painted paroquet
  Hath been—­a most familiar bird—­
  Taught me my alphabet to say—­
  To lisp my very earliest word
  While in the wild wood I did lie,
  A child—­with a most knowing eye.

  Of late, eternal Condor years
  So shake the very Heaven on high
  With tumult as they thunder by,
  I have no time for idle cares
  Though gazing on the unquiet sky. 
  And when an hour with calmer wings
  Its down upon my spirit flings—­
  That little time with lyre and rhyme
  To while away—­forbidden things! 
  My heart would feel to be a crime
  Unless it trembled with the strings.

1829.

* * * * *

FAIRYLAND.