I SAW thee once- -once only—years ago—
I must not say how many, but not many:
It was a July midnight; and from out
A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber,
Upon the upturned faces of a thousand
Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe-
Fell on the upturned faces of these roses,
That gave out, in return for the love-light,
Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death-
Fell on the upturned faces of these roses,
That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted
By thee and by the poetry of thy presence.
Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
I saw thee half-reclining; while the moon
Fell on the upturn'd faces of the roses,
And on thine own, upturn'd, alas, in sorrow!
Was it not Fate that, on this July midnight-
Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow)
That bade me pause before that garden-gate,
To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?
No footstep stirred: the hated world all slept,
Save only thee and me-(O Heaven! O God!
How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)
Save only thee and me. I paused-I looked-
And in an instant all things disappeared.
(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)
The pearly lustre of the moon went out;
The mossy banks and the meandering paths,
The happy flowers and the repining trees,
Were seen no more; the very roses' odours
Died in the arms of the adoring airs.
All-all expired save thee-save less than thou:
Save only the divine light in thine eyes—
Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.
I saw but them—they were the world to me;
I saw but them-saw only them for hours-
Saw only them until the moon went down.
What wild heart-histories seemed to lie enwritten
Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres!
How dark a woe! yet how sublime a hope!
How silently serene a sea of pride!
How daring an ambition! yet how deep,
How fathomless a capacity for love!
But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight
Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;
And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees
Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained.
They would not go-they never yet have gone.
Lighting my lonely pathway home that night.
They have not left me (as my hopes have) since.
They follow me-they lead me through the years.
They are my ministers—yet I their slave.
Their office is to illumine and enkindle-
My duty, to be saved by their bright light,
And purified in their electric fire,
And sanctified in their elysian fire.
They fill my soul with beauty (which is hope),
And
are far up in heaven-the stars I kneel to
In the sad silent watches of my night;
While even in the meridian glare of day
I see them still-two sweetly scintillant
Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!
Nor long ago, the writer of these lines,
In the mad pride of intellectuality,
Maintained "the power of words;" denied that
A thought arose within the human brain
Beyond the utterance of the human tongue:
And now, as if in mockery of that boast,
Two words-two foreign soft dissyllables,
Italian tones, made only to be murmured
By angels dreaming in the moonlit "dew,
That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon Hill"-
Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart
Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of
thought,
Richer, far wilder, far diviner visions
Than even the seraph harper Israfel
(Who has "the sweetest voice of all God's creatures")
Could hope to utter. And I my spells are broken
The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand: With thy dear name as text, though bidden by
I cannot write-I cannot speak or think—
Alas! I cannot feel; for 'tis not feeling,
This standing motionless upon the golden
Threshold of the wide-open gate of dreams,
Gazing entranced adown the gorgeous vista,
And thrilling, as I see upon the right,
Upon the left, and all the way along,
Amid unpurpled vapours, far away
To where the prospect terminates-thee only
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