| |
| THE MEN of learning say she must | |
| Soon pass, and be as if she had not been. | |
| To gratify the barren lust | |
| Of Death, the roses in her cheeks are seen | |
| To blush so brightly, blooming deeper damascene. | 5 |
| |
| All hope and doubt, all fears, are vain: | |
| The dreams I nurs’d of honoring her are past, | |
| And will not comfort me again. | |
| I see a lurid sunlight throw its last | |
| Wild gleam athwart the land whose shadows lengthen fast. | 10 |
| |
| It does not seem so dreadful now, | |
| The horror stands out naked, stark, and still; | |
| I am quite calm, and wonder how | |
| My terror play’d such mad pranks with my will. | |
| The north winds fiercely blow, I do not feel them chill. | 15 |
| |
| All things must die: somewhere I read | |
| What wise and solemn men pronounce of joy; | |
| No sooner born, they say, than dead; | |
| The strife of being, but a whirling toy | |
| Humming a weary moan spun by capricious boy. | 20 |
| |
| Has my soul reach’d a starry height | |
| Majestically calm? No monster, drear | |
| And shapeless, glares me faint at night; | |
| I am not in the sunshine check’d for fear | |
| That monstrous, shapeless thing is somewhere crouching near? | 25 |
| |
| No; woe is me! far otherwise: | |
| The naked horror numbs me to the bone; | |
| In stupor calm its cold, blank eyes | |
| Set hard at mine. I do not fall or groan, | |
| Our island Gorgon’s face has changed me into stone. | 30 |
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