II.

Then when nature around me is smiling

The last smile which answers to mine, I do not believe it beguiling

Because it reminds me of thine;

And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,

If their billows excite an emotion,

It is that they bear me from thee.

III.

Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd
To pain-it shall not be its slave.

There is many a pang to pursue me:

They may crush, but they shall not contemnThey may torture, but shall not subdue me—

"Tis of thee that I think-not of them.

IV.

Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,

Though slander'd, thou never couldst shake,Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me, Though parted, it was not to fly,

Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me,
Nor, mute, that the world might belie.

V.

Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,
Nor the war of the many with one-
If my soul was not fitted to prize it,
'Twas folly not sooner to shun:

And if dearly that error hath cost me,
And more than I once could foresee,
I have found that, whatever it lost me,
It could not deprive me of thee.

VI.

From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd, Thus much I at least may recall,

It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd

Deserved to be dearest of all:

In the desert a fountain is springing,

In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing,

Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

VOL. VI.

D

DARKNESS.

I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;

Morn came, and went and came, and brought no

day,

And men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation; and all hearts

Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:

And they did live by watchfires-and the thrones, The palaces of crowned kings-the huts,

The habitations of all things which dwell,

Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,

And men were gathered round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire-but hour by hour
They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash-and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits

The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest