Life and Phantasy :: :: University of Virginia Library

O lonely Moon, a lonely place
Thou cheerest with thy welcome face;
Three sand-side houses, and afar
The steady beacon's faithful star,
Are all the tokens few and weak
That here of human effort speak.

III.

But this very moment risen
Full above the mighty City,
Viewing palace, viewing prison,
Calmly, without pride or pity,
Strik'st thou its lamplit ranges wan,
Witching all thou gazest on.
Thou hast one mysterious pattern made
Over the multiform enormous bound;
Halving church-towers and endless streets with shade,

Entering a million rooms, from rich to bare,
With countless human scenes and groupings there;
Piercing to many a lurking-place profound;
Marking those aits of melancholy ground
Where 'mid the rush of life the dead repose;
Pale sliding through with sad unnoticed ray
Skylights of crowded theatres, and long rows
Of hospital corridors, but glittering gay
In eyes of youth, and love, and merriment;
Flooding the suburbs with effulgence wide,
Gleaming upon the River which doth glide
Serpenting through it all, intent to hide
Its secrets, crossed by many a dotted Bridge.
—Here's but the sea, the shadowy mountain-ridge.

IV.

Little Town by other shores,
Girt with other mountains;
No Italian city pours
Such a wealth of fountains
As in thee my footsteps meet
Gushing up in every street
Of recollections full and sweet,
Childhood's home of vanish'd bliss,
Still the heart's metropolis.
O Moon, a calm ascent is thine
Above that well-known mountain-line,
There, while I look, ascendest thou,
Its towering westward bastion now
To golden sunset bids goodnight
And eastward it receives thy ghostly light.
Art thou truly looking down
Into the lanes of the little Town
Where I know every chimney's place,
Every door and window's face?
Hast thou set before thee clear,
As in many a by-gone year

Before the years began to change,
One small roof, familiar—strange,
Opening wide to many a vision
Grim, fantastic, or elysian?
Yes,—on that other River glancing,
In its ripples merrily dancing,
Swallowed in the gloomy arches
Where beneath the Bridge it marches
(One long bridge, with not a light
Whether in black or shiny night),
Beaming unopposed and wide
O'er the Harbour's mingling tide,
Touching with a wand of power,
Landmark gray, the old Church-tower,
Yet disturbing not its sleep
Nor the slumber, far more deep,
Its solitary precincts claim,
Paved with many a well-known name,—
As thou wilt thou goest free
In the place where I would be.
There the Fall for ever tolls,
And the Bar, through nights and days,
Booms from sandhills by the sea
When the Atlantic billow rolls
Heavily and solemnly,
Now whitened with thy rays.
The narrow tide I gaze on here
With thee, O Moon, less kindly greets
Mine eyes than that which fiercely beats
The stern Atlantic cliffs along;
Its voice, a stranger's, far less strong,
Less soothes mine ear.

V.

But, Lily of the Lake of Heaven,
Thou Wellhead pure and deep of silver light
O'erflowing mistily a world of dreams,

Claim'st thou no homage for thyself to-night?—
Watcher of Earth, full many a Mountain-range
River and Wilderness and City strange
Within thy ken,—Empress of ocean-streams
And stormier human souls, to whom is given
To fling great waves ashore and make men wild,—
Powerful Enchantress with so calm a face,
By whom are reconciled
The contradictories of Time, of Space,
Of things that seem to be.
The passing moment and the present place
Merge, melt, when look'd upon by Thee,
Into Eternity.