And murmured at such lowly lot—

But, just like any other dream,

Upon the vapour of the dew

My own had past, did not the beam

Of beauty which did while it thro' The minute-the hour-the day-oppress

My mind with double loveliness.

XIV

We walked together on the crown

Of a high mountain which looked down

Afar from its proud natural towers

Of rock and forest, on the hills

The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers

And shouting with a thousand rills.

XV.

I spoke to her of power and pride,

But mystically-in such guise That she might deem it nought beside The moment's converse; in her eyes

I read, perhaps too carelessly

A mingled feeling with my own

The flush on her bright cheek to me

Seemed to become a queenly throne,

Too well that I should let it be

Light in the wilderness alone.

XVI.

I wrapped myself in grandeur then,

And donned a visionary crown

Yet it was not that Fantasy

Had thrown her mantle over me

But that, among the rabble-men,

Lion ambition is chained down---And crouches to a keeper's hand— Not so in deserts where the grand-The wild-the terrible conspire

With their own breath to fan his fire.

XVII.

Look round thee now on Samarcand!

Is she not queen of Earth? her pride

Above all cities? in her hand

Their destinies? in all beside

Of glory which the world hath known Stands she not nobly and alone ? Falling-her veriest stepping-stone Shall form the pedestal of a throne-And who her sovereign? Timour-he

Whom the astonished people saw

Striding o'er empires haughtily

A diademed outlaw!

XVIII.

O human love! thou spirit given,

On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!
Which fall'st into the soul like rain

Upon the Siroc-withered plain,

And, failing in thy power to bless,
But leav'st the heart a wilderness!
Idea! which bindest life around
With music of so strange a sound

And beauty of so wild a birth

Farewell! for I have won the Earth.

XIX.

When Hope, the eagle that towered, could see

No cliff beyond him in the sky,

His pinions were bent droopingly—

And homeward turned his softened eye.

'Twas sunset: when the sun will part

There comes a sullenness of heart

To him who still would look upon

The glory of the summer sun.

That soul will hate the ev'ning mist

So often lovely, and will list

To the sound of the coming darkness (known

To those whose spirits hearken) as one

Who, in a dream of night, would fly,

But cannot, from a danger nigh.

XX.

What tho' the moon--the white moon

Shed all the splendour of her noon,

Her smile is chilly-and her beam,

In that time of dreariness, will seem
(So like you gather in your breath)
A portrait taken after death.

And boyhood is a summer sun
Whose waning is the dreariest one—

For all we live to know is known,

And all we seek to keep hath flown—

Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall

With the noon-day beauty-which is all.

XXI.

I reached my home-my home no more

For all had flown who made it so.