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At midnight
in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic
moon.
An opiate vapour, dewy, dim,
Exhales from
out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by
drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top.
Steals drowsily
and musically
Into the univeral valley.
The
rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the
wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin
moulders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for
the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps! -- and lo! where
lies
(Her easement open to the skies)
Irene, with
her Destinies!
Oh, lady bright! can it be right
--
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs,
from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice
drop --
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit
through thy chamber in and out,
And wave the curtain
canopy
So fitfully -- so fearfully --
Above the
closed and fringed lid
'Neath which thy slumb'ring
sould lies hid,
That o'er the floor and down the
wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh,
lady dear, hast thous no fear?
Why and what art thou
dreaming here?
Sure thou art come p'er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy
pallor! strange thy dress!
Strange, above all, thy
length of tress,
And this all solemn silentness!
The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
Which is
enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred
keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This
bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she
may lie
Forever with unopened eye,
While the dim
sheeted ghosts go by!
My love, she sleeps! Oh,
may her sleep,
As it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft
may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim
and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold --
Some vault that oft hath flung its black
And winged
pannels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o'er the crested
palls,
Of her grand family funerals --
Some
sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she
hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone --
Some tomb fromout whose sounding door
She ne'er shall
force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of
sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.
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