On Viol and Flute :: :: University of Virginia Library

The saint of old who saw the witch-fire shine
High on the island-peak of Ormandine,
Nearer and nearer to the perilous shore
Drew, and forgot the heavenly call divine.

There, round the desolate rock, in that wild air,
He paced the shingle, mad with vain despair,
And heard the wizard's laughter more and more,
Resounding from the topmost granite lair.

Nor ever would have seen the sun again,
But spent an immortality in vain,
Had not the champion of the Sanguine Cross
Sailed to his rescue and the monster slain.

So has it been with these my earlier days,
Bewitched with splendour of the sun's last rays,
Caught with the cloud-wings of the albatross,
Snared with the green light and the lurid blaze.

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The strained fantastic hues of sunset light
Have filled my full horizon of delight,
I have not known the power of perfect day,
And shivered at the range of perfect night.

The clear white colour when the dawn began
Seemed poorer than the twilight blanched and wan,
The opaline green spaces far away
More sweet than waters where the sunbeams ran.

But now the gradual lapse of western light
Proclaims the calm that just precedes the night;
A little while the spaces round the sea
Will glimmer to the distance out of sight.

And then the purple clouds that turn to dun
Will gather round the grave-gates of the sun,
Blackness and silence on the waves will be,
And day have ended and the night begun.

But see the twilight star that starts and shines
Where all the soft light narrows to thin lines;
Its pure intensity of liquid flame
Can teach me more than its own soul divines.

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A fragment of the silver dawn, it lies
Bright on the bosom of the fading skies,
And through the sunless hours will still proclaim
A promise of a morrow to faint eyes.

What say you? Shall we watch the star leap higher,
And pierce the darkness with its filmy fire,
Or turn away before the blind bee's wings
Fold up for sleep, and all the gleams expire?

You do not stir? You will not rise and go?
Then listen longer, if it must be so;
Some songs of sober thought are yet to sing,
Some pulses of my heart are yet to show!