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II.
The dungeon! feelings unutterable,Unintelligible thrill the wrung soul
To phrenetic, and unknown delirium.
Through the high lattice intermural gleam
The flashing sunbeams in refractions dim,
And awful; for the twilight gloom inspires
Thoughts, that invest the outward forms of things
With unseen terror, dreaded, yet unknown;
Darkness tangible loads not the soul
With terrible sensations—no demon glides
Through the rayless gloom, for his sparkling breath
Would supersede his purpose; but the hour,
That intervenes between the varied reign
Of sun and moon, the time of dizziness,
The season of chaotic anarchy,
Is fraught with bodied horrors—gorgons, then,
And fiends walk unforbidden o'er the earth.
Around the tortured brain, corroding, play
The lambent fires of brighter days, when youth,
In sportive trills, and wild exuberance,
Free as the mountain breeze, or like the roe
Bounding away in woeless mirth and glee,
Or the winged deer arching her smooth neck,
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Upon the sunny hill-side, or the gazelle,
Darting from raven lids a piercing eye
Pregnant with rainbow hues; was fraught with heaven,
And seemed a spirit, wandering from the bowers
Of higher spheres, and happier realms than this.
Like wreathing flames around a voiceless wreck,
Manless, sailorless, the thoughts of sweet years
Long past—long lost—come o'er my aching mind,
And wrap me in oblivion momentary!
Sweet hour! O that—alas! this clanking chain
Hath broke the fascinating spell, and crushed
The embryo wish, that dawned upon my soul,
And rose the harbinger of lovely hope.
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