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The Poetical Works of John Payne

Definitive Edition in Two Volumes

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NIRWANA.

I WANDER in the halls of memory,
Death-dumb and rounded with a web of dreams;
And for long fervour of desire, meseems
My soul is parted from the things that be
And the glad forms of life. Upon a sea
Of fluctuant imaginings, that gleams
With phosphorescent moony-coloured beams
Of lurid fancy, all my days do flee,
Seeking for aye some pale and shadowy land
Of sweet and delicate sadness, wearying
To be poured out like wine into some spring
Of wishless being, welling through the sand
Of some sun-consecrated sojourning
Of souls come back into the Maker's hand.