 | Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne |  |
My song, which now hath long flowed unperplexed
Through scenes so various, calm as heaven, or vexed
By gusty passion, reaches the lone shore,
Ghostlike and strange, of silence and old dreams;
Far-off its weird and wandering whisper seems
Like airs that faint o'er untracked oceans hoar
On haunted midnights, when the moon is low.
And now 'tis ended: long, yea, long ago,
Lost on the wings of all the winds that blow,
The dust of these dead loves hath passed away;
Still, still, methinks, a soft, ethereal ray
Illumes the tender record, and makes bright
Its heart-deep pathos with a marvellous light,
So that whate'er of frenzied grief and pain
Marred the pure currents of the crystal strain,
Transfigured shines through fancy's mellowing trance,
Touching with golden haze the quaint old-world romance.
Through scenes so various, calm as heaven, or vexed
By gusty passion, reaches the lone shore,
Ghostlike and strange, of silence and old dreams;
Far-off its weird and wandering whisper seems
Like airs that faint o'er untracked oceans hoar
On haunted midnights, when the moon is low.
And now 'tis ended: long, yea, long ago,
Lost on the wings of all the winds that blow,
The dust of these dead loves hath passed away;
Still, still, methinks, a soft, ethereal ray
Illumes the tender record, and makes bright
Its heart-deep pathos with a marvellous light,
So that whate'er of frenzied grief and pain
Marred the pure currents of the crystal strain,
Transfigured shines through fancy's mellowing trance,
Touching with golden haze the quaint old-world romance.
[_]
Note.—Of “The Frankleines Tale,” the plot of which has been followed in “The Wife of Brittany,” Richard Henry Horne, the author of “Orion,” says: “It is a noble story, perfect in its moral purpose, and chivalrous self-devotion to a feeling of truth and honor; but it would have been more satisfactory in an intellectual sense had a distinction been made between a sincere pledge of faith and a ‘merry bond!’”
| Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne | |