Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, The shadow of the dome of pleasure Where was heard the mingled measure It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome, with caves of ice! In a vision once I saw : It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair, Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, THE PAINS OF SLEEP. ERE on my bed my limbs I lay, It hath not been my use to pray No wish conceived, no thought exprest, But yester-night I prayed aloud Up-starting from the fiendish crowd Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me: And whom I scorned, those only strong! My own or others still the same So two nights pass'd; the night's dismay The third night, when my own loud scream And having thus by tears subdued The unfathomable hell within The horror of their deeds to view, And whom I love, I love indeed. WHAT IS LIFE? RESEMBLES life what once was deemed of light, An absolute self-an element ungrounded- Is very life by consciousness unbounded? And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath, A war-embrace of wrestling life and death? 'TIS LIMBO. 'IS a strange place, this Limbo!—not a Place, Yet name it so;-where Time and weary Space Fettered from flight, with night-mare sense of fleeing, Lank Space, and scytheless Time with branny hands But that is lovely-looks like human Time,— With scant white hairs, with foretop bold and high, He seems to gaze at that which seems to gaze on him. No such sweet sights doth Limbo den immure, Wall'd round, and made a spirit-jail secure, By the mere horror of blank Naught-at-all, Whose circumambience doth these ghosts enthral. A lurid thought is growthless, dull Privation, Yet that is but a Purgatory curse; Hell knows a fear far worse, A fear-a future state;-'tis positive Negation! NE PLUS ULTRA. SOLE Positive of Night! Fate's only essence! primal scorpion rod- Arms the Grasp enorm▬▬ The Intercepter— The Substance that still casts the shadow Death!The Dragon foul and fell The unrevealable, And hidden one, whose breath Gives wind and fuel to the fires of Hell!- Of both th' eternities in Heaven! The all-compassionate! Save to the Lampads Seven Revealed to none of all th' Angelic State, Save to the Lampads Seven, That watch the throne of Heaven! |