And I fear not, thy fair soul ever
  Will smile as thy image smiled;
It had fled with a sudden shiver,
  And thy body lay beguiled. 
Let the flowers and thy beauty perish;
  Let them go to the ancient dust. 
But the hopes that the children cherish,
  They are the Father’s trust.

3.

A great church in an empty square,
  A place of echoing tones;
Feet pass not oft enough to wear
  The grass between the stones.

The jarring sounds that haunt its gates,
  Like distant thunders boom;
The boding heart half-listening waits,
  As for a coming doom.

The door stands wide, the church is bare,
  Oh, horror, ghastly, sore! 
A gulf of death, with hideous stare,
  Yawns in the earthen floor;

As if the ground had sunk away
  Into a void below: 
Its shapeless sides of dark-hued clay
  Hang ready aye to go.

I am myself a horrid grave,
  My very heart turns grey;
This charnel-hole,—­will no one save
  And force my feet away?

The changing dead are there, I know,
  In terror ever new;
Yet down the frightful slope I go,
  That downward goeth too.

Beneath the caverned floor I hie,
  And seem, with anguish dull,
To enter by the empty eye
  Into a monstrous skull.

Stumbling on what I dare not guess,
  And wading through the gloom,
Less deep the shades my eyes oppress,
  I see the awful tomb.

My steps have led me to a door,
  With iron clenched and barred;
Grim Death hides there a ghastlier store,
  Great spider in his ward.

The portals shake, the bars are bowed,
  As if an earthy wind
That never bore a leaf or cloud
  Were pressing hard behind.

They shake, they groan, they outward strain. 
  What sight, of dire dismay
Will freeze its form upon my brain,
  And turn it into clay?

They shake, they groan, they bend, they crack;
  The bars, the doors divide: 
A flood of glory at their back
  Hath burst the portals wide.

Flows in the light of vanished days,
  The joy of long-set moons;
The flood of radiance billowy plays,
  In sweet-conflicting tunes.

The gulf is filled with flashing tides,
  An awful gulf no more;
A maze of ferns clothes all its sides,
  Of mosses all its floor.

And, floating through the streams, appear
  Such forms of beauty rare,
As every aim at beauty here
  Had found its would be there.

I said:  ’Tis well no hand came nigh,
  To turn my steps astray;
’Tis good we cannot choose but die,
  That life may have its way.

4.

Before I sleep, some dreams draw nigh,
  Which are not fancy mere;
For sudden lights an inward eye,
  And wondrous things appear.

Thus, unawares, with vision wide,
  A steep hill once I saw,
In faint dream lights, which ever hide
  Their fountain and their law.