I knew not when the singing ceased
   To trance my brightened soul,
Then from that long eclipse released. 
But looking hopeful towards the East,
   I saw flush pole to pole

The dawn, that had begun to show,
   And through dank vapour burned,
As in a sick face lying low
The rich incarnadine would glow,
   When healthy life returned.

Small drowsy chirping met the light,
   And dim in lowlands far
Lone marsh-birds winged their misty flight;
What time Her aspect on my sight
   Beamed from the morning star.

It waned into the warbling day;
   That, rising fierce and strong,
Now looked the Western gloom away,
And kindled such a roundelay,
   The world awoke with song,

And fresh delicious breezes came
   With scents of paradise
So tingling through my knitted frame,
That never since I lisped a name
   Knew I such joy arise.

Pure was the azure over head;
   Bright was the earth around;
While I on resolution fed,
And moved, as one called from the dead,
   In silence on the ground.

Toward my home I walked, elate
   With hope and settled plan: 
And reverent to the will of Fate,
In every step I trod my weight,
   A sober-minded man.

PART THE THIRD.

I. YEARS AFTER.

Our world has spun ten circles round the light
Since here she vanished.  In my helpless gaze,
To mark the spot, was fixed this carven stone,
Raw, garish, stolidly obtrusive then,
Now harmonising kindly with the rest. 
A spray of centipedal ivy creeps
From death to birth, and reaches to her name;
With kisslike touch its tender leaflets feel
The letter’s edge,—­I scarce can think it chance.

Now scene by scene that strange old long-ago,
Crowding my opened memory, presents
Tumultuous, as in dreams, some dreadful state
Wherein I knew not falsehood from the truth;
Where hope ascending struck the star of Love,
Then fell down headlong grovelling in despair;
But rose at length and walked the beaten way. 
So dim and far these things; so worn and changed,
I scarcely feel that I am he who sought
And won her love.  And is it true indeed,
That I absorbed in tenderest intercourse
Of trustful glance, and trustful clasping hands,
With her went wandering by the river side;
While over head melodious branches sang,
Scattering the gold of sunset-dazzled flowers
Breathing their perfumed sweetness from our path,
That flickering went to where in purple woods
The rugged church tower burned a wall of fire!