University of Virginia Library

SONNETS.

I. THE BRIDE.

Let the trim tapers burn exceeding brightly!
And the white bed be deck'd as for a goddess,
Who must be pillow'd, like high Vesper, nightly
On couch etherial! Be the curtains fleecy,
Like Vesper's fairest, when calm nights are breezy—
Transparent, parting—shewing what they hide,
Or strive to veil—by mystery deified!
The floor gold-carpet, that her zone and bodice
May lie in honour where they gently fall,
Slow-loosened from her form symmetrical—
Like mist from sunlight! Burn, sweet odours, burn!
For incense at the altar of her pleasure!
Let music breathe with a voluptuous measure;
And witchcrafts trance her wheresoe'er she turn!

II. BEAUTY VANISHED.

A creature beautiful as dew-dipp'd roses,
Symmetric as the goddess sprung in marble
From out the sculptor's mind, deeply reposes
In a rich sleep of thought; and the clear warble
Of birds that greet Aurora in blue skies
Hath not a sound so holy as the sighs
That part her fruit-like lips. Is she not dreaming
A poesy inspired of panting love,
Divine as that with which the heavens are streaming
When the intense eye of the west is wove
With the aurient sun-set? She is gone! I weep:
For so all beauty passeth from the vision;
And clouds of darkness o'er the spirit creep,
Making of all her light obscure elision.

III. THE MINGLING.

Nature, low-panting into silence, seems
In a voluptuous trance 'twixt pain and pleasure.
Like a flush'd bride, who sleeps, but still in dreams
Awhile sighs lovingly, the day is hush'd
To slumber in the west; but its warm beams
Yet breathe there of the sun: a fitful measure
Comes on the air, at length'ning intervals,
From some near-nestling bird; whilst, even as crush'd
Flowerets and leaves yield incense, fruits their juices,
The full-reposing beauty of the scene,
Press'd by the strenuous soul, deeply infuses
Its sweetness through the spirit; till between
The twain is but one life, and these clay walls
On this side Death dissolve, and all on air we lean!

IV. THE PRESENT.

As one, a steep and slippery cliff ascending,
Pauses midway, and dares not farther climb;
But a reverting gaze beneath him bending,
Greets terror in the downward course sublime;
And 'twixt the crags above and rocks below
Quails: so, between the depths of all we know,
And the veil'd Future's unattained summit,
Despond we, till our fears around us throw
A murkier shade than death's; and all the glow
Of fancy's star-fires would in vain illume it:
But, ever and anon, Love's moon-like beaming
With a religious beauty o'er us streaming,
Nor ghost of Past, nor dream of Future riseth—
But the sweet Present all in all sufficeth.

V. THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE.

War lay by Love: his sanguine limbs her whiteness
Bound, as might wreaths of coral ivory;
His sun-burnt cheeks from her etherial brightness
Gather'd a gentle glory; whilst a die
Of shadow from his brow her fair embrown'd,
And fell like twilight on the day profound
Of her warm eyes: then, lull'd in purple splendour,
She tamed his fierceness with her kisses tender;
And in the folding of her delicate arms
Beguiling him to savage deeds' disuse,
By the full prevalence of yielding charms
She won for long-lorn Peace a live-long truce;
Girding with moonlight hope her cloud of fears—
And half-redeem'd the world from blood and tears.

VI. THE PARALLEL.

I cannot celebrate great Nature's face
When my adoring eyes are fixed there;
For then am I enrapt in my enjoyment,
And feel her charms too well to say she's fair.
When thou art on thy wooing lady's bosom,
To laud her lips, or eyes, is't thy employment?
No; thou hast scanty time to cull the blossom,
And pausest not to descant on its grace:
But when thy love hath its delirium fed,
Thou dost retire, and call on memory;
Then in thy brain is inspiration bred,
And thou salut'st her with a comment high:
So, till I from the face of Nature turn,
I cannot speak the thoughts with which I burn.

VII. COMPARISON.

As lightning flashing on a twilight kiss
Startles the heart that in the darkness trusted,
Lest sight should make a sin of harmless bliss—
True to the law which Nature's self adjusted:
So, men's eyes striking on my musings written
Alarm my mind, that thought not to be seen,
Lest they should be with contumely smitten
And their high truth cried false by others' spleen.
Those lips are bold which bid the world defiance
And in its spite will take their dues of pleasure;
That verse is daring which holds firm alliance
With truth, and metes the world with rightful measure:
But lips still kiss, in face of scandal's blame—
And I must write, though half the world cry Shame!

VIII. ON A HUMAN HEART.

And was this loathsome clod, which now I grasp,
The vital centre of a wondrous world,
Warming a bosom for pale love to clasp?
Was this foul mass the marvel, where enfurl'd,
Like waves along the mighty ocean curl'd,
High feelings rose, that would the stars defy?
Was this the throbbing and dilating thing,
That lent all splendid beauty to the eye,
Made the lip burn with holy melody,
And floated Fancy on her rainbow-wing?
It was!—a living and a human heart!
A sun of smiles—a solemn cloud of tears!
What is it now?—Oh! let my soul depart!
She's stricken, and her glory disappears.

IX. TO THREE SKULLS.

Still grinning? ye grim frames of vacant bone!
Still staring at me from your sockets blank?
Your noses, bitten by the grave's black frost,
Still sneering hideously? and your lean jaws lank,
Jagg'd with those gumless teeth, still horribly
Mocking the porch of lips?—Ye do accost
My waking with a warning thunder-tone;
And in your looks I read the certainty
Of something that's eternal—death, or life—
For ye with either argument are rife.
I have had horrid dreams; and ye are blest
That no more welter with such fiery rain—
Curse on your empty heads! that are at rest,
Whilst tortures now are ringing through my brain!

X. SLEEP.

Why should'st thou rail at Sleep? poor waking Fool!
How canst thou tell what heavenly subtleties
Are in thy brain wrought by the Power of Dream?
What wondrous seeds of Rhymed Mysteries
Sown in the Soul in slumber, when the cool
And dew-lipp'd Night hath kiss'd each golden beam
That made the Day, into oblivion;
And we within her silent bosom swoon
Into a trance like Death's? What's waking pleasure,
But a forgetfulness of all of pain
That hath been and must be, with some bright treasure
Of present bliss, that no possession leaves us?
And what is Sleep? A ceasing to complain;
And happiest life, if it a sweet dream weaves us.

XI. SPACE.

O, for a song of unimagined glory,
To tell the visible wonders of great Space!
And stand as on a spiritual promontory,
Looking Creation in her holy face;
And with the adoring eye of Poesy
Read the love-secrets there! Holy, all holy,
Is every aspect of the earth and sky;
And all the mighty cloud of melancholy
That from the soul without on that within
Descendeth, to the brainwork of vast dreams
Lends splendid shadowings. O, for deep words,
That, like the music of leaf-hidden birds,
Might even from the listening flowers win
Assent to the great love which in me teems!

XII. REVELATION.

Spirit!—to God!—The Eternal Soul of Things
Is animate within us!—we aspire;
And, glorying in our elemental fire,
Expand etherially—till we embrace
At least a cloud that looks a deity;
And gazing upon Nature, face to face,
Half trace her secret fountains to their springs,
And hold a still communion with her sky.
We need no revelation of the God—
The high, instinctive Being of all Space;
For, as the sweet flower rises from the sod,
Our essence from its clay springs mountingly—
And all its heavenly birth-right doth inherit!
Ay, Spirit's revelation dwells in Spirit.

XIII. LIGHT IN GLOOM.

The self-same play is acted day by day,
And we the weary actors in the sameness:
Our eloquent'st thoughts are dumb in their display,
Our sight not seeing, and our speeding lameness:
We walk as in a cloud; and that poor ray
That finds us in the midst, but serves to show
The deepening mist that girds us as we go.
And yet, I wot, a high and glorious light
Lies in the outward Nature's couch of fire,
To whose eternal pillows we aspire,
And of their ardent freshness dream delight—
That makes a living waking in our slumbers,
Lightens a beam of glory through our night,
And leads the Soul's streams forth, in all their crystal numbers.

XIV. SOLACE.

Thou who dost slumber in dim apathy,
Born of this world's unfathom'd mystery—
Where nothing sweet is tasted, not even love,
Which bitterness succeeds not; where the dove
Of dear Enjoyment, by the vulture Sorrow
Is murder'd at the heart; and hope and thought,
By their intensity to torture wrought,
But gild the brief night that hath no to-morrow—
Yet, come with me! and to the altars fleeing,
For refuge from ourselves, of Nature holy,
Let us there worship, till this gloomy being
Feel gladness lighten o'er its melancholy;
And gazing on the blue sea, rocks and sky,
Our souls gush to their God, in felt eternity!

XV. THE JOURNEY.

“We're on a journey brief; the day is bright,
“And our thoughts joyous—that we shall not tire.”
We're on a journey that is infinite;
'Mid an eternal change of sun and cloud,
Cold winter showerings and hot summer fire;
Breathed on by zephyrs, struck by whirlwinds loud;
And our thoughts, floating through eternity,
Are lapt by turns in joy and agony,
In glory and in gloom; and if fatigue
Assail us not in our unresting travel,
'Tis that we make with our own souls a league
Not to look far before, but on our road
Glance round and feel employ'd: would we unravel
The Immensity beyond? We lift a weary load.

XVI. MINDS AND THE UNIVERSE.

There must be mighty pantings of free thought,
Cravings profound for liberty and love
And sublime ponderings on life and death,
In all the spirits that fill mortal forms!
I cannot yet believe the human swarms
Hived on the earth, are the mere things of breath,
Instinct and form, custom, and slavery
To what their fellows damn, or may approve,
Which still they seem: the mystery round them wrought,
The source and flow of things, the Eternity
From whence they issued and to which they tend,
Must draw their souls unto their utmost bend
And turn them from life's daily littleness;
Or reason is an ape, and spirit spiritless!

XVII. LIFE AND ITS DREAMS.

Even as a cloud, from the horizon's bound,
Floats o'er the dark sea dim and rapidly,
Passes before the sun, deriving light,
Wafts o'er the hills, as doth an airy sound,
And latching on the forehead of the night,
Faints into unseen dew—and so doth die!
Even as a far bird comes, with swift endeavour,
In happy search of regions summer-mild,
Sinks weary down upon the billows wild,
And soon within their depths is whelm'd for ever:
So is it with our life, from birth to death;
And, in their cloud and bird-flight, all its dreams
Still vanish even as a vapour's wreath,
Or perish in affliction's gather'd streams.

XVIII. THE LIFE ETERNAL.

We have two lives. The one, is but a cheat:
A thing of mere convention, which we bear
As minions of that Congregate Deceit,
Society—sole hope of many men!
The tiny parts of one great counterfeit.
The other, fountain'd in Eternity,
Eternal is; and toward Eternity
Flows constant; self-impelling and sublime:
It recogniseth neither Space nor Time;
Contain'd not, but containing; in itself
Folding the Universe; creating all,
Of nought created; sole, and self-sustain'd!
An all-perpetual, undiscerned glory,
To which this Visible Round is darkly transitory!

XIX. ENCHANTED GROUND.

I sat alone, far in a meadow nook,
Fern, briars and wild-flowers dew around me weeping,
And read upon old Bunyan's Christian book
Of Pilgrims vain on Ground Enchanted sleeping:
As, musing, from the page my gaze I took,
I saw dark ivy round a wild-flower creeping;
A spider, when my eyes that trance forsook,
Its venom on a golden insect heaping,
Did I arrest with my detecting look:
Beyond, a pretty-winged thing was steeping
Its plumes in dew-beams from the woodbine shook,
At which a bird flew by, and caught it, leaping.
Ah! when these evil aspects gird us round,
'Tis best to sleep upon Enchanted Ground.

XX. HOPE'S NEED.

The earth is full of ripe and pleasant foison,
Enough to feed its human people all
With sweet abundance; yet, save they quaff poison,
Or have recourse to water, fire, or steel,
Or strangling, or from some high point down fall
And dash their lives out, there be those must feel
Famine, and pining cold, and desolation.
O, God! sure hearts are stones? or none would want
The little which they lack in their progression
From birth to death: men's needings are but scant;
But scantier far men's charity, denying
Superfluous food to life, with hunger dying.
O, Human Thought! that in thy contemplation
Bear'st this, and hopest not—thine is sore oppression.

XXI. AN EXHORTATION TO MANKIND.

When will it be that men shall kinder grow
In human intercourse; and not thus, savagely,
Spring upon each occasion to o'erthrow
Their fellow-travellers through mortality?
God hath apportion'd us enough of woe
In this brief journey; from within derived,
And from the elements, in which we sicken,
Grow weak and die: let not man be deprived
By man of that poor solace which doth quicken
The flagging heart and the o'erlabour'd brain,
And temper to endurance, when self-stricken,
Or time and storm-worn. Transient thing! refrain!
Sting not thy brother insect, till he perish:
A life brief as thine own, vex not; but cherish.

XXII. TO THE PEOPLE.

The Fatal Tree that grew in Paradise,
Whose Fruit, being plucked and eaten, brought the Curse
Of Sin and Sorrow on the goodly Earth,
Must cure as it hath poison'd! Healing lies
In Knowledge for the wounds which the Old Verse
Avers were got from Knowledge: a new birth
Must rise from death; and both of that high cause
Which makes us “even as gods” be the deriven laws.
Let the gall'd Many, in their banded numbers,
Drink of the solemn Knowledge-streams that flow
Over the Land, from the exhaustless springs
Of the Redeemer-Press; till what encumbers
The people with its load be hurl'd below
Into hell-depths, and Mind be left to her free wings!

XXIII. THE TO-COME.

We spurn thy slight decrees, ephemeral World!
And the debased necessity of things
That bows us down before them: there is furl'd
In us the banner of a fortitude,
And lowly on its sovereign rampart hurl'd.
It shall be re-exalted! There be wings
Weaving themselves within the loom of Time,
On which a race to come shall float sublime
In the just liberty of their own mood.
Thou art a tyrant high, usurping power,
Which shall a little moment be obey'd—
And then, dethroned; the disenthralling hour
Now lightens from the Future's thunder-shade!
Thy minions veil their eyes, and are dismay'd.

XXIV. A PROPHECY.

There is a mighty dawning on the earth,
Of human glory: dreams unknown before
Fill the mind's boundless world, and wondrous birth
Is given to great thought; and deep-drawn lore,
But late a hidden fount, at which a few
Quaff'd and were glad, is now a flowing river,
Which the parch'd nations may approach and view,
Kneel down and drink, or float in it for ever:
The bonds of Spirit are asunder broken,
And Matter makes a very sport of distance;
On every side appears a silent token
Of what will be hereafter, when Existence
Shall even become a pure and equal thing,
And earth sweep high as heaven, on solemn wing.

XXV. OF POETS.

Oh! do not envy Poets the poor breath
Of praise which urgeth on their sail of life
Along the troubled waters of the world;
Nor the rich power by which they twine the wreath
Of fame which crowns them when that sail is furl'd
In the calm haven of the breathless grave:
Bitter and strong and manifold the strife
Which shakes them on that voyage; every wave
Of feeling dashes o'er their weltering heart;
And all the thunder and the flash of though
Vollies and lightens round their fitful brain;
And their high power, by which the world is wrought
To mighties sympathies, is grasp'd in pain,
Shower'd from the bosom-tempests they impart.

XXVI. SHELLEY.

Holy and mighty Poet of the Spirit
That broods and breathes along the Universe!
In the least portion of whose starry verse
Is the great breath the sphered heavens inherit—
No human song is eloquent as thine;
For, by a reasoning instinct all divine,
Thou feel'st the soul of things; and thereof singing,
With all the madness of a skylark, springing
From earth to heaven, the intenseness of thy strain,
Like the lark's music all around us ringing,
Laps us in God's own heart, and we regain
Our primal life etherial! Men profane
Blaspheme thee: I have heard thee Dreamer styled—
I've mused upon their wakefulness—and smiled.

XXVII. SHELLEY & KEATS, & THEIR “REVIEWER.”

Two heavenly doves I saw, which were indeed
Sweet birds and gentle—like the immortal pair
That waft the Cyprian chariot through the air;
And with their songs made music, to exceed
All thought of what rich poesy might be:
At which, a crow, perch'd on a sullen tree,
Dingy and hoarse, made baser by their brightness,
Would fain be judge of melody and whiteness,
And caw'd dire sentence on those sweet-throat turtles;
To which his fellow flock of carrion things
Croak'd clamorous assent: but still the wings
Of those pure birds are white amid the myrtles
Of every grove, where cull they nectar'd seed,
Whilst still on cold, dead flesh, those carrion creatures feed.

XXVIII. “JULIAN AND MADDALO.”

I read of “Julian” and “Count Maddalo,”
Till in their spirits' presence stood my soul;
And blending with their sympathy of woe,
A tempest woke my thoughts, and they 'gan roll,
Billow on billow, toward Eternity—
And Passion's cloud hung over the vast Sea.
Where is the Essence now, that thought and spoke?
Absorb'd like water, the frail vessel broke
That held it trembling from the sand awhile?
Or doth it quiver still; and, quivering, smile
At the now clear'd-up Mystery of Creation?
Which shook it once even to its mortal seat,
Which seems the brain and heart, that burn and beat,
Till Life pants darkly for Annihilation.

XXIX. TAGLIONI.

The music and the eloquence of motion
Breathe in quick beauty from her subtle feet;
She moveth like a moonbeam upon ocean,
Which curves and quivers as the billows fleet;
Upon the earth her fine foot falls as lightly
As winds of odour, or aërial rays
From Morn's blue eye, on a mist-woven cloud—
Or dews upon the forest and the flowers:
So round Apollo glance the golden Hours;
Bacchants, with thyrsus arm'd and cymbals loud,
So bound, in many a wine-bewitched maze,
About their joyous god; so Iris, brightly,
Weaving from sun and rain her silent wings,
Upon her pinnacle of ether springs!

XXX. THE TRANCE.

For six long months I lived and yet was dead:
All faith and hope were gone from me; I spoke not;
My heart no longer on my spirit fed,
But on itself, and bitterly; it woke not
With the awak'ning world of things; it sunk
Into the depths of sullen-sleeping thought,
And brooded on extinction, in a drunk
And apoplex'd bewilderment! I sought
For savage arguments, wherewith to arm
My life against my life, that it might pass
Into oblivion: but the mighty charm
Of Being chain'd me to itself; a glass
All microscopic came to my Soul's eye—
I shook—the atom Time grew to Eternity!

XXXI. THE REPROOF OF FAITH.

Even by the Wonder of the Universe
My inmost heart and brain were shaken fearfully;
And whether 'twere a blessing, or a curse,
One of the myriad moving things to be
That people it, I knew not. From the Sea
A sound of terror and a sight of gloom
Pass'd through me; and as upward, mute and tearfully,
I turn'd mine eyes for comfort, Space grew dark
And breathless as a deeply-vaulted tomb;
That my soul circled round the hueless arc,
And thence return'd unsolaced. From within
At length dawn'd consolation. Much of sun
Had shone, and yet would shine, where now was none:
Faith with the thought came back; and whisper'd—“Doubt is Sin.”

XXXII. ATOMICS.

The cavities of tiny grains of sand
Have “deserts idle” and deep “antres vast,”
The haunts of things alive, which understand,
By usage of all senses, that they live,
Enjoy and suffer; but, no more! And we,
Of this “great globe” the creatures transitive,
Know we aught else, for sure? Eternity;
Immensity: in these our doom is cast;
With which compared, earth and its measured time
Are but as sand-grains, whereof in the nooks
We little insects take our revelry,
Laugh, weep, and turn to dust. Those dogma-books
That plague us with our immortality—
Hold they more truth of warrant than this rhyme?

XXXIII. THE UNDECEIVING.

On the great day when I did cease to love,
A glory from the midst of things departed:
But straightway I became more solemn-hearted;
Lifting the business of my mind above
The vulgar work of sense, and even drew
A fulness from the world's new vacancy.
In the changed spirit of life which in me grew
There was a temperate and chasten'd sadness,
That gather'd in the wake of that old madness
As cloudy evening o'er the hot day-sky,
And strengthen'd with its shade my dazzled view
Of Present and Hereafter. Be my eye
Closed to all outward beauty from this hour;
Whilst in my soul I arm a change-defying power!

XXXIV. SOUL-CREATION.

Those words I utter for the Vulgar World
Are not the speech of my in-musing heart;
Where, like to honey by the flower enfurl'd,
There lies a treasure from the World apart:
The World, that cannot pluck from me the art
Of breathing beauty into trembling song;
Which till the blood be stagnant in my veins
Must of prerogative to me belong!
An hour of calm and sea-side loneliness
Will melt out from my mind the grievous stains
Impressed there by forced worldliness;
And as an eve of stillness after storms
Shall my soul be, and with a self-caress
Beget creation of all lovely forms.

XXXV. THE UN-CHARMED.

My pierced life was all ablood with sorrow!
For, suddenly, the veil of beauty thrown
By glorifying Youth o'er sweet To-Morrow
Fell, and disclosed to me the Future's frown;
Within the wrinkles of whose unread brow
There was a lurking something which till then
I dream'd not hung before the lives of men,
Ready to fall upon them as they grow
Into the longer knowledge of brief years:
Blank vacancy; and doubt; and strangled tears,
That never reach the eyelids; vanishing
Of all sweet things we love; death-beds; and graves;
And shadowy wrecks, where pale hopes trembling cling,
Heart-faint, and stifled by continual waves!

XXXVI. THE CORRUPTION.

With much of baseness have I had to do—
Base men; base things!—in this relapse of mine
Into the darkness of our common life,
Through which we thoughtless of all wonders go
Of birth and life and death, as brutish swine
That for their food i' the mire make bestial strife.
Worse than Persephone dragg'd back to Hell
From midway-wending towards Apollo's sight,
Fares the pale Soul, into her fleshly cell
Resunk, from her aspirings to the light
Of that etherial day which ever burneth
In holy Thought's imagined Universe!
I have been tempted; and I feel the Curse,
As vainly now my heart to its old glory turneth.

XXXVII. “MY TABLETS, HO!”

Time passeth o'er me like a silent cloud;
My gaze reverteth, but 'tis gone—dissolved
Into vacuity, or dim-involved
With the undiscerned winds!—Oh! Infancy,
Where be thine eyes, floating in delicate blue?
Oh! Childhood, where thy heart-high prophecy
Of dream-fulfilling bliss? Oh! Beauty's hue,
Where be thy balmy youth? Oh! Manhood proud,
Where thy stout sinews? Age, oh! where thy breath?
All blended in the infinite of Death!
Therefore, away! base heed of appetite;
And, love! be pastime for a wanton hour:
Out of this darkness must I kindle light,
And the all-powerful Shadow overpower.

XXXVIII. TO MY SONG.

Fawn of my deer-swift Thought! that wert most young
And bounded o'er the meadows of delight,
Dew-freshen'd herbs and pleasant flowers among,
With choice of cool shade or of sunshine bright:
What hath befallen thy rejoicing state,
That thou dost gambol on the sward no more,
But still at early morn and evening late
Crouch on the sod where thou didst leap before?
A blight is on thy place of revelry,
And thou dost pluck up hemlock with thy food;
That well may sick death overdim thine eye
When poison mingles with thine infant blood:
Ah! muddy are the streams thy thirst that slake;
And thou hast honours—but they branch, to break.

XXXIX. ROYALTY.

Feels a king's soul as mine such regal pride?
I'm hill-surrounded and star-canopied,
And upon Thought immortal am I throned;
My verse my sceptre, and my liegemen true
The tributary hearts which I imbue
With my mind's shadow: should I stand disown'd
Amid the peopled world—scorn'd of the many,
Fear'd of the few and unbeloved by any—
I am the master still of mine own fate;
Defeat cannot subdue me to its state,
Nor victory unseemingly elate:
Otway died meanly; not so Chatterton,
Whose hopes forsook and left his heart alone—
No footstool-emperor he, for man to tread upon!

XL. PHILOSOPHY AND IMPULSE.

When Socrates, through Plato, learnedly
Argueth against impulsive action,
I, in the ignorance of Mortality,
To his divinest meditation,
Which holdeth that achievement—difficult
As is the checking of the wind and tide—
The curbing of the Thought's and Feeling's pride,
To be within the scope and a result
Of blood and fancy-led Humanity,
Do write me down most captious heretic,
Falling to contradiction splenetic.
Ah! dear G--- T---! If this did abide
Within the compass of Philosophy,
My Friend and I were spirits right orderly!

XLI. AN ANTICIPATION.

My youth was love, and all my love was youth;
And youth and love were blended in my song;
With much of fable, but with more of truth,
And though the chain was weak, its power was strong:
For, as we pause by summer-vale, or hill,
To drink the music of a bird, or rill,
So warm hearts waited round my gushing lyre,
And loved the dreamer for his vision's fire!
But now my hair is grey, my sense is blind;
Time's ashes choke my heart's expiring glow;
And my Song, leaving this bright world behind,
Mounts to the loftier world to which I go:
I muse on deathless things; but die, alone—
A King abandon'd, by his shatter'd throne!