How deep the night about that soul! BE not so desolate How fast the manacles! I brood Because thy dreams have flown And recreate in my own heart And the hall of the heart is empty Its agony of solitude. And silent as stone, As age left by children Sad and alone. Have golden lips breathed in that dark? And was the breath as vainly blown As yon frail wind that trembles on Those delicate children, This mammoth herd of brutish stone? Thy dreams, still endure: All pure and lovely things Wend to the Pure. A kinsman of the cherubim Sigh not: unto the fold Chained in this pit's abysmal mire! Their way was sure. Sound for the rescue! Bugles, blow! Thy gentlest dreams, thy frailest, Gird on the armoury of fire! Even those that were Born and lost in a heart-beat, Shall meet thee there. They are become immortal In shining air. The unattainable beauty The thought of which was pain, That flickered in eyes and on lips And vanished again: That fugitive beauty Thou shalt attain. The lights innumerable That led thee on and on, The Masque of Time ended, Shall glow into one. It shall be with thee for ever Thy travel done. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE OLD VIOLIN by MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN ABOU BEN ADHEM by JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT BY THE STATUE OF KING CHARLES AT CHARING CROSS by LIONEL PIGOT JOHNSON IDYLLS OF THE KING: GUINEVERE by ALFRED TENNYSON ON THE STATUE OF AN ANGEL, BY BIENAIME by WASHINGTON ALLSTON CHORUS OF THE CLOUD-MAIDEN: ANTISTROPHE, FR. THE CLOUDS by ARISTOPHANES |