I SAT low down, at midnight, in a vale Mysterious with the silence of blue pines: White-cloven by a snaky river-tail, Uncoiled from tangled wefts of silver twines. Out of a crumbling castle, on a spike Of splintered rock, a mile of changeless shade Gorged half the landscape. Down a dismal dike Of black hills the sluiced moonbeams streamed, and stayed. The world lay like a poet in a swoon, When God is on him, filled with heaven, all through, -- A dim face full of dreams turned to the moon, With mild lips moist in melancholy dew. I plucked blue mugwort, livid mandrakes, balls Of blossomed nightshade, heads of hemlock, long White grasses, grown in oozy intervals Of marsh, to make ingredients for a song: A song of mourning to embalm the Past, -- The corpse-cold Past, -- that it should not decay; But in dark vaults of memory, to the last, Endure unchanged: for in some future day I will bring my new love to look at it (Laying aside her gay robes for a moment) That, seeing what love came to, she may sit Silent awhile, and muse, but make no comment. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...KNOWLEDGE by HENRY DAVID THOREAU THE LAST LANDLORD by ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN LINES TO A FITFUL LOVER by MIRIAM BARRANGER THE DEAD MISTRESS by CHARLES BAUDELAIRE BALLAD TO THE TUNE - 'I WOULD GIVE TWENTY POUND' by PATRICK CAREY |