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Yes, I muse! And if the dawning
Into daylight never grew,
If the glistering wings of morning
On the dry noon shook their dew,
If the fits of joy were longer,
Or the day were sooner done,
Or, perhaps, if hope were stronger,
No weak nursling of an earthly sun …
Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens,
Dusk the hall with yew!

* * * * *

For a bound was set to meetings,
And the sombre day dragg’d on;
And the burst of joyful greetings,
And the joyful dawn, were gone.
For the eye grows fill’d with gazing,
And on raptures follow calms;
And those warm locks men were praising,
Droop’d, unbraided, on your listless arms.

Storms unsmooth’d your folded valleys,
And made all your cedars frown;
Leaves were whirling in the alleys
Which your lovers wander’d down.
–Sitting cheerless in your bowers,
The hands propping the sunk head,
Still they gall you, the long hours,
And the hungry thought, that must be fed!

Is the pleasure that is tasted
Patient of a long review?
Will the fire joy hath wasted,
Mused on, warm the heart anew?
–Or, are those old thoughts returning,
Guests the dull sense never knew,
Stars, set deep, yet inly burning,
Germs, your untrimm’d passion overgrew?

Once, like us, you took your station
Watchers for a purer fire;
But you droop’d in expectation,
And you wearied in desire.
When the first rose flush was steeping
All the frore peak’s awful crown,
Shepherds say, they found you sleeping
In some windless valley, farther down.

Then you wept, and slowly raising
Your dozed eyelids, sought again,
Half in doubt, they say, and gazing
Sadly back, the seats of men;–
Snatch’d a turbid inspiration
From some transient earthly sun,
And proclaim’d your vain ovation
For those mimic raptures you had won….

* * * * *

With a sad, majestic motion,
With a stately, slow surprise,
From their earthward-bound devotion
Lifting up your languid eyes–
Would you freeze my too loud boldness,
Dumbly smiling as you go,
One faint frown of distant coldness
Flitting fast across each marble brow?

Do I brighten at your sorrow,
O sweet Pleaders?–doth my lot
Find assurance in to-morrow
Of one joy, which you have not?
O, speak once, and shame my sadness!
Let this sobbing, Phrygian strain,
Mock’d and baffled by your gladness,
Mar the music of your feasts in vain!

* * * * *

Scent, and song, and light, and flowers!
Gust on gust, the harsh winds blow–
Come, bind up those ringlet showers!
Roses for that dreaming brow!
Come, once more that ancient lightness,
Glancing feet, and eager eyes!
Let your broad lamps flash the brightness
Which the sorrow-stricken day denies!

Through black depths of serried shadows,
Up cold aisles of buried glade;
In the midst of river-meadows
Where the looming kine are laid;
From your dazzled windows streaming,
From your humming festal room,
Deep and far, a broken gleaming
Reels and shivers on the ruffled gloom.

Where I stand, the grass is glowing;
Doubtless you are passing fair!
But I hear the north wind blowing,
And I feel the cold night-air.
Can I look on your sweet faces,
And your proud heads backward thrown,
From this dusk of leaf-strewn places
With the dumb woods and the night alone?

Yet, indeed, this flux of guesses–
Mad delight, and frozen calms–
Mirth to-day and vine-bound tresses,
And to-morrow–folded palms;
Is this all? this balanced measure?
Could life run no happier way?
Joyous, at the height of pleasure,
Passive at the nadir of dismay?