THERE comes an hour when all life's joys and pains To our raised vision seem But as the flickering phantom that remains Of some dead midnight dream! There comes an hour when earth recedes so far, Its wasted wavering ray Wanes to the ghostly pallor of a star Merged in the milky way. Set on the sharp, sheer summit that divides Immortal truth from mortal fantasie; We hear the moaning of time's muffled tides In measureless distance die! Past passions -- loves, ambitions and despairs, Across the expiring swell Send thro' void space, like wafts of Lethean airs, Vague voices of farewell. Ah, then! from life's long-haunted dream we part, Roused as a child new-born, We feel the pulses of the eternal heart Throb thro' the eternal morn. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO THE LAPLAND LONGSPUR by JOHN BURROUGHS THE CASTAWAY by WILLIAM COWPER THE PAST by RALPH WALDO EMERSON THE WILD HONEYSUCKLE by PHILIP FRENEAU SONNET: 61 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE PEACE ON EARTH by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS |