 | Poems |  |
III.
The mental powers, and passions all confined
Unquelled—unbroken—wild and warring still!
The stretched hand now grasping—nought—now clenched round
The icy chain! the straining eyeball's glare
O'er vacancy! the fierce whelming tempest
Raging within! the hissing shades, that pass,
And hurl their puny thunderbolts around,
Or curl the sneers of degradation and contempt:
All paint but feebly the fell miseries,
And severing pangs, that rack the pensile frame
Immured in wrath within a living tomb.
Unquelled—unbroken—wild and warring still!
The stretched hand now grasping—nought—now clenched round
The icy chain! the straining eyeball's glare
O'er vacancy! the fierce whelming tempest
Raging within! the hissing shades, that pass,
And hurl their puny thunderbolts around,
Or curl the sneers of degradation and contempt:
All paint but feebly the fell miseries,
And severing pangs, that rack the pensile frame
Immured in wrath within a living tomb.
The bosom's sepulchre! unseen by man,
In long and undisturbed hours of deep
And dreadful loneliness, the soul had slept,
Unheeding mortal mandate, when a sun
Arose upon my vision, and a world
Of dazzling brightness, and around me flew
Strange forms, and laughing eyes did shine through hair
Loose waving—I wondered at the transition!
The glad reversions of my former fate!
I mused upon the inexplicable
Scene—and thought, as oft we think when deep sleep,
Midway between Death and Eternity,
Steals o'er the wearied senses and recalls
The visions she has bred before, a dream,
Engendered by some hovering angel,
Had swelled my vivid fancy with a sweet,
Illuding phantom scene, to cheer, dispel,
The clouds, that hang in blackening folds around
The fathomless, quenchless oblivial gulf.
But a hand touched me, and a voice was heard.
I wakened from my reverie, and rose
Upon my fanning pinions o'er the clouds,
That rolled beneath, and opened on my view
A blissful scene—and I was bodiless.
In long and undisturbed hours of deep
180
Unheeding mortal mandate, when a sun
Arose upon my vision, and a world
Of dazzling brightness, and around me flew
Strange forms, and laughing eyes did shine through hair
Loose waving—I wondered at the transition!
The glad reversions of my former fate!
I mused upon the inexplicable
Scene—and thought, as oft we think when deep sleep,
Midway between Death and Eternity,
Steals o'er the wearied senses and recalls
The visions she has bred before, a dream,
Engendered by some hovering angel,
Had swelled my vivid fancy with a sweet,
Illuding phantom scene, to cheer, dispel,
The clouds, that hang in blackening folds around
The fathomless, quenchless oblivial gulf.
But a hand touched me, and a voice was heard.
I wakened from my reverie, and rose
Upon my fanning pinions o'er the clouds,
That rolled beneath, and opened on my view
A blissful scene—and I was bodiless.
| Poems | |