The Desolation of Eyam :: :: University of Virginia Library

Ah there!—and comest thou thus again—
Thou phantom of delight?
How oft, in hours of lonely pain,
Thou risest on my sight.
Since last we met, what suns have known
Their rising and decline!
But none of all those suns have shewn
A fairer face than thine.

171

'Tis many a year since I looked on
Those meek and loving eyes;
And thousands since have come and gone,
Like meteors through the skies.
But thine—they often come to me,
With lustre so benign,
Though memory of all others flee
'Twill make but dearer thine.

As not alone, the gorgeous arch
Reared in heaven's summer dome,
Gleams proudly on its silent march,
And heralds good to come,
But leaves, where'er its glory passed,
A fragrancy divine,
So freshly on my soul is cast
The odorous light of thine.

172

Then welcome to my lonely hours,
Thou visionary thing,
Come with thy coronal of flowers,
Flowers of a vanished spring.
For gleeful souls let others roam,
But, till life's cords untwine,
In my heart's depth shall find a home
That pensive face of thine.

“The ancients,” says Lord Bacon in his “Ten Centuries of Natural History,” “believed that where the rainbow rested it left a delicate and heavenly odour.”