That rises upward always higher, And onward drags a labouring breast, And topples round the dreary west, A looming bastion fringed with fire. XVI. WHAT words are these have fall'n from me? Can calm despair and wild unrest Be tenants of a single breast, Or sorrow such a changeling be? Or doth she only seem to take The touch of change in calm or storm; But knows no more of transient form In her deep self, than some dead lake That holds the shadow of a lark Hung in the shadow of a heaven? Or has the shock, so harshly given, Confus'd me like the unhappy bark That strikes by night a craggy shelf, And staggers blindly ere she sink? And stunn'd me from my power to think And all my knowledge of myself; And made me that delirious man Whose fancy fuses old and new, And flashes into false and true, And mingles all without a plan ? XVII. THOU Comest, much wept for such a breeze Compell'd thy canvas, and my prayer Was as the whisper of an air To breathe thee over lonely seas. For I in spirit saw thee move Thro' circles of the bounding sky; Week after week: the days go by: Come quick, thou bringest all I love. Henceforth, wherever thou may'st roam, Is on the waters day and night, So may whatever tempest mars Mid-ocean, spare thee, sacred bark ; And balmy drops in summer dark Slide from the bosom of the stars. |