 | May Fair |  |
Or around her high abode,
Tempest, like an ocean, flowd;
Till the lightning's sulphur-gleam
Flamed on mountain, vale, and stream;
And the vaporous upper world
Roll'd, like armies downward hurl'd,
Titans, by the thunder driven
From the sapphire gates of Heaven;
While the swellings of the gale
Seem'd their trumpet's broken wail.
Then along the mighty blue
Rose like flowerets pale and few,
Over which a storm had gone,
Star and starlet, one by one;
Like the lamps in some high fane,
Struggling through the tempest-stain;
As it vanish'd, richer mustering,
Orb on orb in glory clustering;
Till the temple of the night
Blazed with the immortal light.
Trifles—fancy's long past gleams,—
Boyish, more than boyish dreams;
Things of many a year ago—
Yet what have our years to show,
With their thousand secret stings,
Better than those boyish things?
From our cradles to our shrouds,
What are hopes, joys, loves,—but clouds?
Tempest, like an ocean, flowd;
Till the lightning's sulphur-gleam
Flamed on mountain, vale, and stream;
136
Roll'd, like armies downward hurl'd,
Titans, by the thunder driven
From the sapphire gates of Heaven;
While the swellings of the gale
Seem'd their trumpet's broken wail.
Then along the mighty blue
Rose like flowerets pale and few,
Over which a storm had gone,
Star and starlet, one by one;
Like the lamps in some high fane,
Struggling through the tempest-stain;
As it vanish'd, richer mustering,
Orb on orb in glory clustering;
Till the temple of the night
Blazed with the immortal light.
137
Boyish, more than boyish dreams;
Things of many a year ago—
Yet what have our years to show,
With their thousand secret stings,
Better than those boyish things?
From our cradles to our shrouds,
What are hopes, joys, loves,—but clouds?
| May Fair | |