For Love dwells with the dead, though No drossy shape of earthliness appears On the phantastic coast, No grosser sound strikes the attuned ears Than footfall of a ghost. Seclusion, quiet, silence, slumber, dreams, No murmur of a breath; The same still image on the same still streams, Of Love caressing Death. The seagull shrieks high overhead, and dimly to our sight The moonlit crests of foaming waves gleam towering through the night. We'll steal upon the mermaid soon, and start her from her lay, When once the sandy bar is cross'd, and we are in the bay. What rises white and awful as a shroudenfolded ghost? What roar of rampant tumult bursts in clangor on the coast? Pull back! pull back! The raging flood sweeps every oar away. O stream, is this thy bar of sand? O boat, is this the bay? THE LYRICAL POEM PASSION the fathomless spring, and words the precipitate waters, Rhythm the bank that binds these to their musical bed. THE DIDACTIC POEM SOULLESS, colorless strain, thy words are the words of wisdom. Is not a mule a mule, bear he a burden of gold? |