I stand beneath the mystic moon
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim
Exhales from out her golden rim
And, softly dripping, drop by drop
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the univeral valley
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast
The ruin moulders into rest
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
and would not, for the world, awake
All beauty sleeps!--and lo! where lies
(Her casement open to the skies)
Irene, with her Destinies!
Oh, lady bright! can it be right--
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top
Laughingly through the lattice drop--
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber, in and out,
And wave the curtain canopy
so fitfuilly--so carefully--
Above the closed and fringed lid
'Neath which the slumb'ring souls are hid,
That o'er the floor and down the wall
Like ghosts and shadows rise and fall!
Oh lady dear, hast thou no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come o'er far-off seas
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!
Strange, above all, thy length of trees,
and this all solemn silentness!
The lady sleep! oh, may her sleep,
Whic is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie,
forever with unopened eye,
While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!
My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
as it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, deep and old
For her may some tall vault unfold--
Some vault that oft hath flung its black
And winged panels fluttering back
Truimphant. o'er the crested palls
Of her grand family funerals--
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
against whose portal she hath thrown
In childhood, many an idle stone--
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne'er shall force an echo more,
thilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within