Out of the nothingness of sleep, 
The slow dreams of Eternity, 
There was a thunder on the deep: 
I came, because you called to me. 

I broke the Night's primeval bars, 
I dared the old abysmal curse, 
And flashed through ranks of frightened stars 
Suddenly on the universe! 

The eternal silences were broken; 
Hell became Heaven as I passed. – 
What shall I give you as a token, 
A sign that we have met, at last? 

I'll break and forge the stars anew, 
Shatter the heavens with a song; 
Immortal in my love for you, 
Because I love you, very strong. 

Your mouth shall mock the old and wise, 
Your laugh shall fill the world with flame, 
I'll write upon the shrinking skies 
The scarlet splendour of your name, 

Till Heaven cracks, and Hell thereunder 
Dies in her ultimate mad fire, 
And darkness falls, with scornfull thunder, 
On dreams of men and men's desire. 

Then only in the empty spaces, 
Death, walking very silently, 
Shall fear the glory of our faces 
Through all the dark infinity. 

So, clouthed about with perfect love, 
The eternal end shall find us one, 
Alone above the Night, above 
The dust of the dead gods, alone.

When we two parted 
In silence and tears, 
Half broken – hearted 
To sever for years, 
Pale grew thy cheek and cold, 
Colder thy kiss; 
Truly that hour foretold 
Sorrow to this. 
The dew of the morning 
Sunk chill on my brow- 
It felt like the warning 
Of what I fell now. 

Thy vows are all broken, 
And light is thy fame; 
I hear thy name spoken, 
And share in its shame. 
They name thee before me, 
A knell to mine ear; 
A shudder comes o'er me- 
Why wert thou so dear? 
They know not I knew thee, 
Who knew thee too well: - 
Long, long shall I rue thee, 
Too deeply to tell. 

In secret we met – 
In silence I grieve 
That thy heart could forget, 
Thy spirit deceive. 
If I should meet thee 
After long years, 
How should I greet thee? – 
With silence and tears

O, that you were yourself! But, love, you are 
No longer yours than you yourself here live: 
Against this coming end you should prepare, 
And your sweet semblance to some other give. 
So should that beauty which you hold in lease 
Find no determination: then you were 
Yourself again after yourself's decease, 
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay, 
Which husbandry in honour might uphold 
Against the stormy gusts of winter's day 
And barren rage of death's eternal cold? 
O, none but unthrifts! Dear my love, you know 
You had a father: let your son say so.

I dreamt, I saw my girl last night 
Alive as you and me 
I say: “But Jenny, you are dead” 
“I'll never die” said she 
“I missed you every day” said I – 
She standing by my bed. 
“You're left me very long ago” 
Jane says “But I ain't dead” 
In the night, she's call me. 
In the night, she's came to me. 

And standing there as gentle as life 
And smiling with her eyes 
She said “Then you have broke my heart, 
Now time to pay the price” 

In the night, she's call me. 
In the night, she's came to me. 
In the night.

When she sleeps, her soul, I know, 
Goes a wanderer on the air, 
Wings where I may never go, 
Leaves her lying, still and fair, 
Waiting, empty, laid aside, 

Like a dress upon a chair… 
This I know, and yet I know 
Doubts that will not be denied. 

For if the soul be not in place, 
What has laid trouble in her face? 
And, sits there nothing ware and wise 
Behind the curtains of her eyes, 

What is it, in the self's eclipse, 
Shadows, soft and passingly, 
About the corners of her lips, 
The smile that is essential she? 

And if the spirit be not there, 
Why is fragrance in the hair?

There are some qualities - some incorporate things, 
That have a double life, which thus is made 
A type of that twin entity which springs 

From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade. 
There is a two-fold _Silence_ - sea and shore - 
Body and Soul. One dwells in lonely places, 

Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces, 
Some human memories and tearful lore, 
Render him berrorless: his name's "No more." 

He is the corporate Silence: dread him not! 
No power hath he of evil in himself; 
But should some urgent fate (untime ly lot!) 

Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf, 
That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod 
No foot of man), commend thyself to God!

Sidere arx Mundi 
Destruente aves 
ornant grumum. 
Pectore sistente Bucinator cantot Victoriam!

All suddenly the wind comes soft, 
And Spring is here again; 
And the hawthorn quickens with buds of green, 
And my heart with buds of pain. 

My heart all Winter lay so numb, 
The earth so dead and frore, 
That I never thought the Spring would come, 
Or my heart wake any more. 

But Winter's broken and earth has woken, 
And the small birds cry again; 
And the hawthorn hedge puts forth its buds, 
And my heart puts forth its pain.

By a route obscure and lonely, 
Haunted by ill angels only, 
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT, 
On a black throne reigns upright, 
I have reached these lands but newly 
From an ultimate dim Thule- 
From a wild clime that lieth, sublime, 
  Out of SPACE- out of TIME. 
Bottomless vales and boundless floods, 
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods, 
With forms that no man can discover 
For the tears that drip all over; 
Mountains toppling evermore 
Into seas without a shore; 
Seas that restlessly aspire, 
Surging, unto skies of fire; 
Lakes that endlessly outspread 
Their lone waters- lone and dead,- 
Their still waters- still and chilly 
With the snows of the lolling lily. 
By the lakes that thus outspread 
Their lone waters, lone and dead,- 
Their sad waters, sad and chilly 
With the snows of the lolling lily,- 
By the mountains- near the river 
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,- 
By the grey woods,- by the swamp 
Where the toad and the newt encamp- 
By the dismal tarns and pools 
  Where dwell the Ghouls,- 
By each spot the most unholy- 
In each nook most melancholy- 
There the traveller meets aghast 
Sheeted Memories of the Past- 
Shrouded forms that start and sigh 
As they pass the wanderer by- 
White-robed forms of friends long given, 
In agony, to the Earth- and Heaven. 
For the heart whose woes are legion 
'Tis a peaceful, soothing region- 
For the spirit that walks in shadow 
'Tis- oh, 'tis an Eldorado! 
But the traveller, travelling through it, 
May not- dare not openly view it! 
Never its mysteries are exposed 
To the weak human eye unclosed; 
So wills its King, who hath forbid 
The uplifting of the fringed lid; 
And thus the sad Soul that here passes 
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.

In visions of the dark night 
  I have dreamed of joy departed- 
But a waking dream of life and light 
  Hath left me broken-hearted. 
Ah! what is not a dream by day 
  To him whose eyes are cast 
On things around him with a ray 
  Turned back upon the past?
That holy dream- that holy dream,
  While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
  A lonely spirit guiding.
What though that light, thro' storm and night,
  So trembled from afar-
What could there be more purely bright
  In Truth's day-star?

Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream! 
My spirit not awakening, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow. 
Yes! tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow, 

'Twere better than the cold reality
Of waking life, to him whose heart must be, 
And hath been still, upon the lovely earth, 
A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.
 
But should it be- that dream eternally 
Continuing- as dreams have been to me 
In my young boyhood- should it thus be given, 
'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.
 
For I have revell'd, when the sun was bright 
I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light 
And loveliness,- have left my very heart 
In climes of my imagining, apart 

From mine own home, with beings that have been 
Of mine own thought- what more could I have seen? 
'Twas once- and only once- and the wild hour 
From my remembrance shall not pass- some power 

Or spell had bound me- 'twas the chilly wind 
Came o'er me in the night, and left behind 
Its image on my spirit- or the moon 
Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon

Too coldly- or the stars- howe'er it was 
That dream was as that night-wind- let it pass. 
I have been happy, tho' in a dream. 
I have been happy- and I love the theme: 

Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life, 
As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife 
Of semblance with reality, which brings 
To the delirious eye, more lovely things 

Of Paradise and Love- and all our own! 
Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.

There was a damned successful Poet; 
  There was a Woman like the Sun. 
And they were dead. They did not know it. 
  They did not know their time was done. 
  They did not know his hymns 
  Were silence; and her limbs, 
  That had served Love so well, 
  Dust, and a filthy smell. 

And so one day, as ever of old, 
  Hands out, they hurried, knee to knee; 
On fire to cling and kiss and hold 
  And, in the other's eyes, to see 
  Each his own tiny face, 
  And in that long embrace 
  Feel lip and breast grow warm 
  To breast and lip and arm. 

So knee to knee they sped again, 
  And laugh to laugh they ran, I'm told, 
Across the streets of Hell . . . 
  And then 
  They suddenly felt the wind blow cold, 
  And knew, so closely pressed, 
  Chill air on lip and breast, 
  And, with a sick surprise, 
  The emptiness of eyes.

Thy soul shall find itself alone 
'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone; 
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy. 
Be silent in that solitude, 
  Which is not loneliness- for then 
The spirits of the dead, who stood 
  In life before thee, are again 
In death around thee, and their will 
Shall overshadow thee; be still. 
The night, though clear, shall frown, 
And the stars shall not look down 
From their high thrones in the Heaven 
With light like hope to mortals given,

But their red orbs, without beam, 
To thy weariness shall seem 
As a burning and a fever 
Which would cling to thee for ever. 
Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish, 
Now are visions ne'er to vanish; 
From thy spirit shall they pass 
No more, like dew-drop from the grass. 
The breeze, the breath of God, is still, 
And the mist upon the hill
Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken, 
Is a symbol and a token. 
How it hangs upon the trees, 
A mystery of mysteries!

Take this kiss upon the brow! 
And, in parting from you now, 
Thus much let me avow- 
You are not wrong, who deem 
That my days have been a dream; 
Yet if hope has flown away 
In a night, or in a day, 
In a vision, or in none, 
Is it therefore the less gone? 
All that we see or seem 
Is but a dream within a dream. 
I stand amid the roar 
Of a surf-tormented shore, 
And I hold within my hand 
Grains of the golden sand- 
How few! yet how they creep 
Through my fingers to the deep, 
While I weep- while I weep! 
O God! can I not grasp 
Them with a tighter clasp? 
O God! can I not save 
One from the pitiless wave? 
Is all that we see or seem 
But a dream within a dream?

 They cut it down, and where the pitch-black aisles
  Of forest night had hid eternal things,
  They scaled the sky with towers and marble piles
  To make a city for their revellings.

  White and amazing to the lands around
  That wondrous wealth of domes and turrets rose;
  Crystal and ivory, sublimely crowned
  With pinnacles that bore unmelting snows.

  And through its halls the pipe and sistrum rang,
  While wine and riot brought their scarlet stains;
  Never a voice of elder marvels sang,
  Nor any eye called up the hills and plains.

  Thus down the years, till on one purple night
  A drunken minstrel in his careless verse
  Spoke the vile words that should not see the light,
  And stirred the shadows of an ancient curse.

  Forests may fall, but not the dusk they shield;
  So on the spot where that proud city stood,
  The shuddering dawn no single stone revealed,
  But fled the blackness of a primal wood.

They sleep within. . . . 
I cower to the earth, I waking, I only. 
High and cold thou dreamest, O queen, high-dreaming and lonely. 

We have slept too long, who can hardly win 
The white one flame, and the night-long crying; 
The viewless passers; the world's low sighing 
With desire, with yearning, 
To the fire unburning, 
To the heatless fire, to the flameless ecstasy! . . . 

Helpless I lie. 
And around me the feet of thy watchers tread. 
There is a rumour and a radiance of wings above my head, 
An intolerable radiance of wings. . . . 

All the earth grows fire, 
White lips of desire 
Brushing cool on the forehead, croon slumbrous things. 
Earth fades; and the air is thrilled with ways, 
Dewy paths full of comfort. And radiant bands, 
The gracious presence of friendly hands, 
Help the blind one, the glad one, who stumbles and strays, 
Stretching wavering hands, up, up, through the praise 
Of a myriad silver trumpets, through cries, 
To all glory, to all gladness, to the infinite height, 
To the gracious, the unmoving, the mother eyes, 
And the laughter, and the lips, of light.