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

Sometimes across my garish life
There falls a faint phantasmal veil,
That slowly stills the whirling strife
As with a dropping frosty hail;
And underneath a mystic moon
My earthly senses fade and swoon,
And through a world of subtle things
I journey, lapped in utter calm,
And all my restlessness finds wings
And all my sorrow balm.

There walk the languorous multitudes
Who sought and found eternal rest;

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They wander through the silent woods
By twilight and old sleep caressed,
And every dark-eyed traveller sups
The honey from the briony-cups,
And with a long white finger strikes
The gelid dew from jasmine-bowers,
Or shatters all the orange spikes
Of agrimony-flowers.

And there I too in bliss may walk,
With slumbrous heavy-lidded eyes,
And round my brows a tender stalk
Of vervain twisted garland-wise;
And in my fingers ye may see
Three leaves of flowerless lunary,
And round me bygone memories
Gather and crowd, and laugh or weep;
I have no portion in all these,
No pleasure, but in sleep.

For in that valley, dim and green,
I brood upon my own pure mind,
That fruitless blossom epicene
That communes not with its own kind;
And all are so, and never word
From all those multitudes is heard,

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But from their passions once set free
They rest, and to perfection brought,
Are drowned in an eternity
Of slow delicious thought.

Pain comes not there, nor keen delight,
And no man knows satiety;
The same dim lustre, day and night,
Floods all the valley dreamily;
Summers and winters wax and wane
For these most fortunate, in vain,
Since all the year is changeless there,
And ever as the slow months pass,
They see the same leaves wave in air,
The same flowers in the grass.

And underneath the pale blue sky,
Along the hillsides, hoary-gray,
Funereal trains and palls go by,
Of souls that die from day to day;
And when they reach the valley's head,
The noiseless armies of the dead
Come forth to meet them face to face,
And lead them singly, hand in hand,
And show to each his separate place
In that enchanted land.

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The ardours of a woman's face,
And sudden thrillings of love-pain
Have in this vale no dwelling-place,
And throbbing hearts grow calm again;
For men and women quite forget
How once they fluttered in Love's net,
And all whom once extreme desire
Wore to an ember of a soul,
For moonshine change the fierce sun-fire
In this sleep-haunted goal.

Here love-consoled, walks Diomed,
And Tristran with his ladies twain,
And here Francesca's stately head
Is shriven from its ghostly pain;
The large grey eyes of Guenevere
Gaze into Arthur's with no fear,
And Juliet sees, without a sigh,
Across the moon-fern pastures go
The champion of Love's chivalry,
Her passionate Romeo.

There no bizzare desires distress,
No soft contours of limbs or lips;
The slow blood flushes with no stress
Across the brain's constrained eclipse;

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Along the stream the manifold
Narcissi-stars of white and gold
Gaze down into the depths; their eyes
Feel all the passion souls can know
In that calm life without surprise
The dead enjoy below.

Here lying in the faint gray grass,
Or walking by the water's breast,
The spirits of all dead men pass
A long eternity of rest;
For here their passions find repose
In weary life's delicious close,
And while they pace the lotos-beds
No living breathing form intrudes,
Save dark narcotic blossom-heads
Of flowers in multitudes.

I, only I, have life and breath,
I, only I, in slumber bound,
Walk through the resonant land of death,
An alien on that hallowed ground;
Those happy shades will never know
The sad return of passionate woe,
My heart is like a fountain sealed,
A dark lake frosted up and white,

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A poor soul fluttering unannealed,
Ready to take its flight.

But, for a season, calm and glad,
I walk among the dead of old,
And with the wise, serenely sad,
Long dialogues I seem to hold;
And down the shadowy colonnades
I wander with illustrious shades,
And in my ears their souls rehearse,
In measured accents, soft and slow,
The noblest thoughts, in prose and verse,
That Rome or Greece could know.

But, oh! the calm, the sweet repose,
My weary spirit finds in sleep!
The cataracts foam their windy snows,
And moan their music down the steep;
Along the vale the marsh-flowers bloom,
And steep the air in faint perfume,
And scent and low harmonious noise
Drift slumber through my weary brain,
The while I learn the silent joys
Of quietude from pain.

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Till, woe! I feel through all my bliss
All suddenly the piercing fangs
Of life returning with a kiss
That stings my brow with poison-fangs;
And through my veins the surging blood
Throbs on and rushes in a flood,
And borne upon the wildering ocean
Of old omnipotent desires,
Tossed by the anguish of emotion,
My dream of peace expires.

And through the thundering world again,
Like some red leaf a tempest drives,
Smitten by horror, thrilled with pain,
My tossing spirit whirls and strives!
Satanic passions stab me through,
And what I would not, that I do,
And ever in my aching ears
The monstrous satyr-riot swells,
While, over all, my spirit hears
The clangour of sad bells.

An end must come at last, at last!
When in the tender arms of death,
My stormy life of weakness past,
I may restore this borrowed breath;

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And in the valley of my dream,
May taste that dear Lethean stream,
Whose thought, through toilsome hours and days,
Has brought me solace not in vain,
And wandering in its grassy ways
Stir never thence again!