The Hidden Eloquence

Succeeding years, too wild for song, Then rolled like tropic storms along, Where, through the garish lights that fly Dying along the troubled sky, Lay bare, through vistas thunder-riven, The blackness of the general Heaven, That very blackness yet doth Ring Light on the lightning's silver wing.

For being an idle boy lang syne; Who read Anacreon and drank wine, I early found Anacreon rhymes Were almost passionate sometimes-- And by strange alchemy of brain His pleasures always turned to pain-- His naiveté to wild desire-- His wit to love-his wine to fire-- And so, being young and dipt in folly, I fell in love with melancholy,

And used to throw my earthly rest And quiet all away in jest-- I could not love except where Death Was mingling his with Beauty's breath-- Or Hymen, Time, and Destiny, Were stalking between her and me.

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But now my soul hath too much room-- Gone are the glory and the gloom-- The black hath mellow'd into gray, And all the fires are fading away.

My draught of passion hath been deep-- I revell'd, and I now would sleep And after drunkenness of soul Succeeds the glories of the bowl An idle longing night and day To dream my very life away.

The way a crow   Shook down on me   The dust of snow   From a hemlock tree   Has given my heart   A change of mood   And saved some part   Of a day I had rued.

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;  It rains, and the wind is never weary;  The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,  But at every gust more dead leaves fall,     And the day is dark and dreary. My life is cold and dark and dreary;  It rains and the wind is never weary;  My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,  And youth's fond hopes fall thick in the blast,     And my life is dark and dreary. Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;  Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;  Thy fate is the common fate of all,  Into each life some rain must fall,     Some days must be dark and dreary.

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so, For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow, Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee doe goe, Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie. Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell, And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well, And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then; One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally, And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow— You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream.