| |
| NOT in the sky, | |
| Where it was seen, | |
| Nor on the white tops of the glistening wave, | |
| Nor in the mansions of the hidden deep,— | |
| Though green, | 5 |
| And beautiful, its caves of mystery;— | |
| Shall the bright watcher have | |
| A place, and as of old high station keep. | |
| |
| Gone, gone! | |
| Oh, never more to cheer | 10 |
| The mariner who holds his course alone | |
| On the Atlantic, through the weary night, | |
| When the stars turn to watchers, and do sleep, | |
| Shall it appear, | |
| With the sweet fixedness of certain light, | 15 |
| Down-shining on the shut eyes of the deep. | |
| |
| Vain, vain! | |
| Hopeless most idly then, shall he look forth, | |
| That mariner from his bark. | |
| Howe’er the north | 20 |
| Does raise his certain lamp, when tempests lower— | |
| He sees no more that perished light again! | |
| And gloomier grows the hour | |
| Which may not, through the thick and crowding dark, | |
| Restore that lost and loved one to her tower. | 25 |
| |
| He looks,—the shepherd of Chaldea’s hills | |
| Tending his flocks,— | |
| And wonders the rich beacon does not blaze, | |
| Gladdening his gaze;— | |
| And from his dreary watch along the rocks, | 30 |
| Guiding him safely home through perilous ways! | |
| Still wondering as the drowsy silence fills | |
| The sorrowful scene, and every hour distils | |
| Its leaden dews.—How chafes he at the night, | |
| Still slow to bring the expected and sweet light, | 35 |
| So natural to his sight! | |
| |
| And lone, | |
| Where its first splendors shone, | |
| Shall be that pleasant company of stars: | |
| How should they know that death | 40 |
| Such perfect beauty mars? | |
| And like the earth, its crimson bloom and breath; | |
| Fallen from on high, | |
| Their lights grow blasted by its touch, and die!— | |
| All their concerted springs of harmony | 45 |
| Snapped rudely, and the generous music gone. | |
| |
| A strain—a mellow strain— | |
| A wailing sweetness filled the sky; | |
| The stars, lamenting in unborrowed pain, | |
| That one of their selectest ones must die! | 50 |
| Must vanish, when most lovely, from the rest! | |
| Alas! ’t is evermore our destiny, | |
| The hope, heart-cherished, is the soonest lost; | |
| The flower first budden, soonest feels the frost: | |
| Are not the shortest-lived still loveliest? | 55 |
| And, like the pale star shooting down the sky, | |
| Look they not ever brightest when they fly | |
| The desolate home they blessed? | |
| |
