University of Virginia Library

There is a dark and rayless hour, that hangs
A mystic mantle o'er our dearest pleasures,
Attended not by agonizing pangs,
A ruthless ruin of our tinkling treasures,
When the Eumenides, with Gorgon mien,
Call their dire progeny, the empusae,
To lay the dark domains of death, the scene
Of mornless gloom, and dreadful destiny,
Before the startled vision, and array
Their legions in a phalanx;—but when worth,
Nor love, nor beauty, round the fancy play,
And o'er the soul's dominions dark a dearth
Of feeling reigns, a desert listlessness
Enshrouds the mind; as hopeless Psyche lone,
Companionless, was left with none to bless
Her tired existence, no soft, soothing tone
To call her dormant energies back to life,
And renovate the passions, that illume
This warring sphere with reckless terrors rife,
And gild the tenant of a living tomb.
The heartless galliard, and buffoon appear
Like gilded butterflies, on velvet wing,
In idle sport, and idiot mummery, e'er
Chasing airy phantoms around the spring,
That purls along in draining flow—or apes,
Frisking around in frolic mimicry;
Or like the wanton shades, and sybil shapes,
Flitting, on pinions beautiful, on high,
And luring fickle man to misery and death.
The sage philosopher, in sable stole,
Strikes the fell dart, and poisons with his breath
The exquisite, cultured, but hopeless soul,
And flings the robe of Nessus o'er the frame;
His learned maxims lose their magic art,
They kindle into fury terrible the flame,
That sleeps in dormant embers round the heart.

O'er the sad soul there comes a chilling blight,
A winter ... and a withering of all that's fair,
A heedless feeling, and a starless night;
And pestilential is the circling air!
Yet surging billows break not, whelm not all
The fine sensations of majestic mind—
Stern apathy, of iron mien, the pall
Of darkness throws—in labyrinths we wind
Our devious way—in wild vagaries
Of soulless mirth, and jest, we strive to throw
A darkling veil o'er grief, and light the skies,
Where horror broods, with beauty's vermeil glow.
'Tis all a wanton masquerade—a play
With woes, that none can mitigate, nor heal—
Like the light deer, that sports the summer day
Beneath the shade nemoral, ere the steel
Rives her full heart, and lays her darling young
In piles around her;—In exclusion dread
From all we hope or love, not fiercely stung
To vengeful madness, by agony bred,
Not doomed to writhe in torture audible,
Cinctured by victorious fiends, and e'er
Illuded by their subtle arts, and fell,
But condemned groanless, and without a tear,
To drag along a weary life—no fond,
Mild, compassionate voice to hear, and spring
To higher spheres, and brighter worlds, beyond
This vapid tenement—no fanning wing
To view, on which to soar away, and blend
Existence with eternity, and join
In high devotion ne'er to wane, nor end
Its song extatic, symphony divine.