But see, amid the mimic rout A crawling shape intrude! A blood-red thing that writhes from out It writhes!-it writhes!-with mortal pangs The mimes become its food, Out-out are the lights-out all! Comes down with the rush of a storm, That the play is the tragedy, "Man," And its hero the Conqueror Worm. TO F8 S. Od. THOU wouldst be loved ?-then let thy heart TO ONE IN PARADISE. THOU wast that all to me, love, For which my soul did pine A green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrine, All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine. Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise But to be overcast ! A voice from out the Future cries, "On! on!"-but o'er the Past (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies Mute, motionless, aghast! For, alas! alas! with me The light of Life is o'er! "No more-no more-no more- 99 (Such language holds the solemn sea To the sands upon the shore) Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, Or the stricken eagle soar! And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams THE VALLEY OF UNREST. Once it smiled a silent dell Where the people did not dwell; Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven Over the violets there that lie In myriad types of the human eye— And weep above a nameless grave! They weep-from off their delicate stems THE CITY IN THE SEA. Lo! Death has reared himself a throne In a strange city lying alone Far down within the dim West, Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest. There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!) Resemble nothing that is ours. Around, by lifting winds forgot, No rays from the holy heaven come down The v ol, the violet, and the vine. Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. So blend the turrets and shadows there That all seem pendulous in air, While from a proud tower in the town Death looks gigantically down. There open fanes and gaping graves But not the riches there that lie Along that wilderness of glass- No heavings hint that winds have been But lo, a stir is in the air! The wave-there is a movement there! As if the towers had thrust aside, |