III.

Once, when I was shedding bitter tears, when my hope streamed away dissolved in sorrow, and I stood alone beside the barren hill, that concealed in narrow gloomy space the form of my existence—­alone, as never solitary yet hath been, urged by an agony beyond expression, powerless, no more than a mere thought of sorrow; as I looked around me there for aid, could not advance, could not retire, and hung with incessant longing upon fleeting, failing life;—­then came there from the blue distance, from the heights of my former happiness, a thin veil of the twilight gloom, and in a moment burst the bondage of the fetters of the birth of light.  Then fled the glories of the earth, and all my sorrow with them; sadness melted away in a new, an unfathomable world; thou, inspiration of the Night, slumber of heaven, camest over me; the spot whereon I stood rose insensibly on high; above the spot soared forth my released and new-born spirit.  The hill became a cloud of dust; through the cloud I beheld the revealed features of my beloved one.  In her eyes eternity reposed; I grasped her hands, and my tears formed a glittering, inseparable bond.  Ages were swept by like storms into the distance; on her neck I wept tears of ecstasy for life renewed.  It was my first, my only dream; and from that time I feel an eternal and unchanging faith in the heaven of the Night, and in its light, the Loved One.

IV.

Now do I know when the last morn will be; when the light shall no more give alarm to the night and to love; when the slumber shall be without end, and there shall be but one exhaustless dream.  Heavenly weariness do I feel within me.  Long and wearisome had become the pilgrimage to the holy grave—­the cross a burthen.  He who hath tasted of the crystal wave that gushes forth, unknown to common eye, in the dark bosom of that hill, against whose foot the flood of earthly waves is dashed and broken; he who hath stood upon the summit of the world’s mountain bounds, and hath looked beyond them down into that new land, into the abode of Night; he, well I ween, turns not back into the turmoil of the world—­into the land where the light, and eternal unrest, dwells.

There, above, does he erect his huts—­his huts of peace; there longs and loves, until comes the most welcome of all hours to draw him down into that fountain’s source.  Upon the surface floats all that is earthly—­it is hurried back by storms; but that which was hallowed by the breath of love, freely streams it forth, through hidden paths, into that realm beyond the mountain chain, and there, exhaled as incense, becomes mixed with loves that have slept.  Still, cheerful light, dost thou waken the weary to his toil, still pourest thou glad life into my breast; but from the mossy monument that memory has raised, thence canst thou not allure me.  Willingly will I employ my hands in industry