Читать книгу The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 4, October, 1863 - Various - Страница 3

                                Said a poet, sighing lowly,

                                As his life ebbed slowly, slowly,

And upon his pallid features shone the sun's last rosy light,

                                Shedding there a radiance tender,

                                Softened from the dazzling splendor

Of the burning clouds of sunset, gleaming in the west so bright,

Glancing redly, ere forever lost within the gloom of night:

                                'Gold and crimson clouds of even,

                                Kindling the blue vault of heaven,

Ye are types of airy fancies that within my spirit glow!

                                Thou, O Night, so darkly glooming,

                                And those brilliant tints entombing

In thy black and heavy shadows, thou art like this life of woe,

Prisoning all the glorious visions that still beat their wings to go!

                                'Oh, what brilliancy and glory

                                Had illumed my life's dull story,

Could those thoughts have found expression as within my soul they shone!

                                But though there like jewels gleaming,

                                And with golden splendor streaming,

Cold and dim their lustre faded, tarnished, like the sparkling stone

That, from out the blue waves taken, looks a pebble dull alone.

                                'For within my heart forever

                                Was a never-dying river,

Was a spring of deathless music welling from my deepest soul!

                                And all Nature's deep intonings,

                                Merry songs, and plaintive meanings,

Floated softly through my spirit, swelling where those bright waves stole,

Till the prisoning walls seemed powerless 'gainst that billowy rush and roll.

                                'Oh, the surging thoughts and fancies;

                                Oh, the wondrous, wild romances

That from morn till dewy twilight murmured through my haunted brain!

                                Thoughts as sweet as summer roses,

                                And with music's dreamiest closes,

Dying faintly into silence, from the full and ringing strain

That through all my spirit sounded with a rapture half of pain.

                                'How I longed those words to utter

                                That within my heart would flutter,

Beating wild against their prison, as its walls they'd burst in twain:

                                But it broke not, throbbing only,

                                Aching in a silence lonely,

Till my very life was flooded with a wild, delicious pain;

Kindled with a blaze illuming all the chambers of my brain!

                                'And to me death had been glorious,

                                If those burning words, victorious,

Had at last surged o'er their prison, bearing my departing soul!

                                Gladly were my heart's blood given,

                                If those bonds I might have riven;

If, with every crimson lifedrop that from out my full heart stole,

I might hear that swelling chorus upward in its glory roll.

                                'Sad and low my heart is beating!

                                Each pulsation still repeating

'All in vain those eager longings, all in vain that burning prayer.

                                See the breezes, 'mid the bowers,

                                Sigh above the fragrant flowers,

And from out those drooping roses, their heart-folded sweetness bear—

But no heaven-sent wind shall whisper thy soul-breathings to the air.'

                                'But upon my darkened vision

                                Comes a gleam of light Elysian;

And a seraph voice breathes softly—'Answered yet shall be that prayer!

                                For the spirit crushed and broken

                                By those burning words unspoken,

Soon shall hear them swelling, floating far upon the heavenly air,

And its deepest inmost visions shall have perfect utterance there!''