FAIRY-LAND
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im vales—and shadowy floods—And cloudy-looking woods,Whose forms we can’t discoverFor the tears that drip all overHuge moons there wax and wane—Again—again—again—Every moment of the night—Forever changing places—And they put out the star-lightWith the breath from their pale faces.About twelve by the moon-dialOne, more filmy than the rest(A kind which, upon trial,They have found to be the best)Comes down—still down—and downWith its centre on the crownOf a mountain’s eminence,While its wide circumferenceIn easy drapery fallsOver hamlets, over halls,Wherever they may be—O’er the strange woods—o’er the sea—Over spirits on the wing—Over every drowsy thing—And buries them up quiteIn a labyrinth of light—And then, how deep!—O, deep!Is the passion of their sleep.In the morning they arise,And their moony coveringIs soaring in the skies,With the tempests as they toss,Like—almost any thing—Or a yellow Albatross.They use that moon no moreFor the same end as before—Videlicet a tent—Which I think extravagant:Its atomies, however,Into a shower dissever,Of which those butterflies,Of Earth, who seek the skies,And so come down again(Never-contented things!)Have brought a specimenUpon their quivering wings.1831. THE LAKE —— TO—— In spring of youth it was my lotTo haunt of the wide earth a spotThe which I could not love the less—So lovely was the lonelinessOf a wild lake, with black rock bound,And the tall pines that tower’d around.But when the Night had thrown her pallUpon that spot, as upon all,And the mystic wind went byMurmuring in melody—Then—ah then I would awakeTo the terror of the lone lake.Yet that terror was not fright,But a tremulous delight—A feeling not the jewelled mineCould teach or bribe me to define—Nor Love—although the Love were thine.Death was in that poisonous wave,And in its gulf a fitting graveFor him who thence could solace bringTo his lone imagining—Whose solitary soul could makeAn Eden of that dim lake.1827.
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