Dim vales—­and shadowy floods—­
  And cloudy-looking woods,
  Whose forms we can’t discover
  For the tears that drip all over
  Huge moons there wax and wane—­
  Again—­again—­again—­
  Every moment of the night—­
  Forever changing places—­
  And they put out the star-light
  With the breath from their pale faces. 
  About twelve by the moon-dial
  One more filmy than the rest
  (A kind which, upon trial,
  They have found to be the best)
  Comes down—­still down—­and down
  With its centre on the crown
  Of a mountain’s eminence,
  While its wide circumference
  In easy drapery falls
  Over hamlets, over halls,
  Wherever they may be—­
  O’er the strange woods—­o’er the sea—­
  Over spirits on the wing—­
  Over every drowsy thing—­
  And buries them up quite
  In a labyrinth of light—­
  And then, how deep!—­O, deep! 
  Is the passion of their sleep. 
  In the morning they arise,
  And their moony covering
  Is soaring in the skies,
  With the tempests as they toss,
  Like—­almost any thing—­
  Or a yellow Albatross. 
  They use that moon no more
  For the same end as before—­
  Videlicet a tent—­
  Which I think extravagant: 
  Its atomies, however,
  Into a shower dissever,
  Of which those butterflies,
  Of Earth, who seek the skies,
  And so come down again
  (Never-contented thing!)
  Have brought a specimen
  Upon their quivering wings.

1831

* * * * *

THE LAKE.

  In spring of youth it was my lot
  To haunt of the wide world a spot
  The which I could not love the less—­
  So lovely was the loneliness
  Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
  And the tall pines that towered around.

  But when the Night had thrown her pall
  Upon the spot, as upon all,
  And the mystic wind went by
  Murmuring in melody—­
  Then—­ah, then, I would awake
  To the terror of the lone lake.

  Yet that terror was not fright,
  But a tremulous delight—­
  A feeling not the jewelled mine
  Could teach or bribe me to define—­
  Nor Love—­although the Love were thine.

  Death was in that poisonous wave,
  And in its gulf a fitting grave
  For him who thence could solace bring
  To his lone imagining—­
  Whose solitary soul could make
  An Eden of that dim lake.

1827.

* * * * *

EVENING STAR.

  ’Twas noontide of summer,
    And midtime of night,
  And stars, in their orbits,
    Shone pale, through the light
  Of the brighter, cold moon. 
    ’Mid planets her slaves,
  Herself in the Heavens,
    Her beam on the waves.