| |
| A DEEP sleep came, and on my senses fell:— | |
| In solitude, upon a rock, whose brow | |
| Recumbent frown’d upon a mirror flood, | |
| Methought I stood:—In emerald array, | |
| A still immeasureable glassy tide | 5 |
| In gentle beauty slept—while day-light stain’d, | |
| With parting hue, its bosom’s quietude.— | |
| The worn-out winds had long ago expired, | |
| And with their lullaby, the weary waves | |
| Had cradled to their rest:—The weeping heavens | 10 |
| Refreshing distillations shed, and hung | |
| Their jewelry upon the rosy skirts | |
| Of branch, and bank, and many an airy peak. | |
| Powder’d with gems, the distant valley seem’d | |
| With living constellations paved, and burnt | 15 |
| Like molten diamonds. Such landscape once, | |
| The enraptured eye of Moses held enthrall’d, | |
| When near the borders of the promised land, | |
| From Pisgah’s towering steep, the blissful shore | |
| Of Canaan he beheld.—Before my dream, | 20 |
| A dismal, strange, and shadowy change now pass’d; | |
| In blood-red garments veil’d, solemn and slow, | |
| Climbing her height, uprose the dim, cold Moon;— | |
| As up she bent her never-sounding march, | |
| She seem’d to bode of skulls and sepulchres, | 25 |
| Of sights unholy, and forbidden things;— | |
| Of death, and judgment, and the latter doom.— | |
| As on her course she kept, she seem’d to shed | |
| A mildew in the stagnant breeze.—A fog | |
| Now from the unwholesome earth arose, and fill’d | 30 |
| With suffocating steams the burden’d air.— | |
| A sudden spirit seem’d the winds to move: | |
| The tide, which erst in waveless slumber lay, | |
| In strange commotion groan’d and hiss’d, and shook | |
| From the foundation of its boiling deep. | 35 |
| The dews in heavy drops fell fast, and turn’d | |
| To clotted gore, mixing with blood, the marl;— | |
| The sobbing winds unearthly voices bore, | |
| Of lamentations deep, and speechless wail;— | |
| While, ever anon between, arose | 40 |
| Commingled sounds, as from unquiet souls, | |
| Or unlaid spirits, issuing; strange and wild | |
| The noises grew, and seem’d like funeral dirge | |
| Of maniac harpers on the midnight wave; | |
| Then ceased each sound, and all a while was hush’d, | 45 |
| Save the deep chiming of the distant knell | |
| That heavily along the waters roll’d, | |
| And from her den the hungry she-wolf woke, | |
| Who with a famish’d howl re-echoed back | |
| The solemn vesper bell:—Now suddenly | 50 |
| From trumpet’s throat unseen, a stirring peal | |
| The alarming summons rung, which on the ear | |
| Of fix’d astonishment awoke a pang | |
| Insufferably keen:—The forests bent | |
| Their giant limbs, and shook their tenants forth;— | 55 |
| Whilst dove and vulture, in promiscuous fright, | |
| With staggering wing confusedly outpour’d, | |
| And dash’d them in the flood: fierce from her steep | |
| On sinewy pinions borne, the Eagle rush’d,— | |
| In noble wrath, she stretch’d her meteor flight | 60 |
| To untried regions, thence, to gaze upon | |
| The idol of her scorching eye:—still up, | |
| With glance electric, and with iron beak, | |
| She bent her bosom ’gainst the thunder cloud; | |
| Fearless the tempest in his fury met, | 65 |
| And scream’d her requiem to departed day. | |
| The ancient column, and the battlement, | |
| From their firm bases reeling, to the ground | |
| In thundering ruin fell:—Convulsed, methought | |
| I heard the world’s expiring groan,—old earth | 70 |
| From her remotest recess, back return’d | |
| The final cry, and render’d up herself.— | |
| And now, emerging from their dreams profound | |
| Awoke the relics, which, for ages had | |
| In their dark chambers slept:—With hurried pace, | 75 |
| The sheeted figures, with inquietude | |
| Hover’d about the confines of their home;— | |
| Long, long, in darkness and oblivion quench’d, | |
| Their eyes with marble stupefaction roll’d, | |
| And glared in monumental mockery. | 80 |
| A blighting dew, cadaverous and chill, | |
| Crept o’er my mouldering limbs:—I felt Decay | |
| With rotten fingers touch my very heart!— | |
| An apparition to my soul he seem’d, | |
| Too horrible for thought, unutterable, | 85 |
| Ghastly!—while on his carrion visage stood | |
| The crusted mildew of the charnel-house; | |
| And from his worm-gnawn body dropp’d away | |
| The flesh, corruption long had fed upon:— | |
| Fast to my breast the ugly spectre clung;— | 90 |
| Within my vitals fix’d his mouldy grasp, | |
| And with abominable transport wood | |
| My captive soul, that, struggling, tugg’d in vain, | |
| To free the spirit from her dungeon clay.— | |
| “Be mine!” exulting cried the fiend, “Be mine!” | 95 |
| While through the portals of my hearing, rung | |
| The long and horrid laugh, the laugh of hell!— | |
| An overwhelming flame before my eyes | |
| With fury flash’d, that all around appear’d, | |
| A wilderness of intermittent fires.— | 100 |
| A sudden, burning pang,—no more,—’t was gone. | |
| Methought, to my astonish’d vision now, | |
| Outnumbering cherubim and seraphim | |
| Freckled with stars, their wings of light reveal’d, | |
| And through the crystal chambers of the sky, | 105 |
| Celestial odors fann’d; while radiant hung | |
| Their alabaster harps, self-tuned—methought | |
| Intuitive the wires in concert play’d, | |
| And to the winds in conscious numbers sung.— | |
| At intervals responsive voices stole, | 110 |
| And breathed around such heavenly harmony, | |
| That things inanimate became all ear;— | |
| E’en death itself put old oblivion off, | |
| And, reinstated, felt young life again.— | |
| Such sights, for ever shut from mortal eyes, | 115 |
| Such sounds, prohibited the mortal ear, | |
| I trembling woke; and, for a while, intent, | |
| Listen’d, and look’d, and thought the VISION real. | |
| |
