'Mong heavy roses weighed with dew The chirping crickets hid; Down the honeysuckle avenue Creaked the green katydid. The scattered stars smiled thro' the pines; Thro' stately windows draped with vines The rising moonlight's silver blew. He stared at lips proud, white, and dead, A chiseled calm that wore; Despair moaned on the lips that said "To meet no more."
A broken rainbow on the skies of May Touching the sodden roses and low clouds, And in wet clouds like scattered jewels lost: Upon the heaven of a soul the ghost Of a great love, perfect in its pure ray, Touching the roses moist of memory To die within the Present's grief of clouds-- A broken rainbow on the skies of May.
A flashing humming-bird amid strange flowers, Or red or white; its darting length of tongue Sucking and drinking all the cell-stored sweet, And now the surfeit and the hurried fleet: A love that put into expanding bowers Of one's large heart a tongue's persuasive powers To cream with joy, and riffled, so was gone-- A flashing humming-bird amid strange flowers.
A foamy moon which thro' a night of fleece Moves amber girt into a bulk of dark, And, lost to eye, rims all the black with froth: A love of smiles, that, tinctured like a moth, Moved thro' a soul's night-dun and made a peace-- More bland than Melancholy's white--to cease In blanks of Time zoned with pale Memory's spark-- A foamy moon that brinks a storm with fleece.
A blaze of living thunder--not a leap-- Momental spouting balds the piléd storm, The ghastly mountains and the livid ocean, The pine-roared crag, then blots the sight's commotion: A love that swiftly pouring bared the deep, Which cleaves white Life from Death, Death from white Sleep, And, ceasing, gave a brain one blur of storm-- Blank blast of midnight, love for Death and Sleep.
I saw her twins of eyelids listless swoon Mesmeric eyes, Like the mild lapsing of a lulling tune On wide surprise, While slow the graceful presence of a moon Mellowed the purple skies.
And had she dreamed or had in fancy gone As one who sought To hail the influx of a godly dawn Of heavenly thought, Trod trembling o'er old sainted hill and lawn With intense angels fraught?
Sailed thro' majestic domes of the deep night By isles of stars, Wand'ring like some pure blessing warm with light From worldly jars To the high halls of morning, pearly white, And heaped with golden bars.