Carol and Cadence :: :: University of Virginia Library

Oft, in the wailing weather.
Before the dawning grey,
I hear a dream-voice calling
From regions far away:
“Yonder,” I hear it say,
“The sapphire seas are falling,
“All through the golden day,
“Upon the silver shore.
“Let us go thither, thither.
“There will we dwell together
“And sunder nevermore.

“Far, far beyond the setting,
“A land of love there lies,
“Where there shall no more weeping
“Be for the weary eyes;
“Where, under bluebell skies,
“Frail blooms of Faith's begetting,
“Thy dreams, not dead, but sleeping,
“Transfigured shall arise,

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“To greet thee on the strand;
“There Love and Life, forgetting
“This world of fruitless fretting,
“Go ever hand in hand.”

2.

Go, tell your cheating story
To those who know you not.
Your wiles no more delude me,
That never have forgot
The deserts cold and hot,
The sandwastes red and gory,
Wherethrough my life you wooed me
To waste in quest of what
You knew might never be.
Now that my head is hoary,
Your seas, your shores of glory
Are nought in nought to me.

Your golden islands, glowing
Out yonder in the West,
Long, long have ceased to lure me
Upon their fruitless quest.
If Hope within my breast
Once flamed for Fancy's blowing,
Time hath availed to cure me
Of all but wish for rest;
And by the extinguished fire
I dwell, delight forgoing,
My one desire the knowing
The vainness of desire.