To Helen
Lines:66Movement:Romanticism
I saw thee once--once only--years ago:I must not say _how_ many--but _not_ many.It was a July midnight; and from outA full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,With quietude, and sultriness and slumber,Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousandRoses that grew in an enchanted garden,Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe--Fell on the upturn'd faces of these rosesThat gave out, in return for the love-light,Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death--Fell on the upturn'd faces of these rosesThat smiled and died in this parterre, enchantedBy thee, and by the poetry of thy presence. Clad all in white, upon a violet bankI saw thee half-reclining; while the moonFell on the upturn'd faces of the roses,And on thine own, upturn'd--alas, in sorrow! Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight--Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow),That bade me pause before that garden-gate,To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?No footstep stirred: the hated world all slept,Save only thee and me--(O Heaven!--O God!How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)--Save only thee and me. I paused--I looked--And in an instant all things disappeared.(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)The pearly lustre of the moon went out:The mossy banks and the meandering paths,The happy flowers and the repining trees,Were seen no more: the very roses' odorsDied in the arms of the adoring airs.All--all expired save thee--save less than thou:Save only the divine light in thine eyes--Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.I saw but them--they were the world to me.I saw but them--saw only them for hours--Saw only them until the moon went down.What wild heart-histories seemed to lie unwrittenUpon those crystalline, celestial spheres!How dark a woe! yet how sublime a hope!How silently serene a sea of pride!How daring an ambition! yet how deep--How fathomless a capacity for love! But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing treesDidst glide away. _Only thine eyes remained._They _would not_ go--they never yet have gone.Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,_They_ have not left me (as my hopes have) since.They follow me--they lead me through the years. They are my ministers--yet I their slave.Their office is to illumine and enkindle--My duty, _to be saved_ by their bright light,And purified in their electric fire,And sanctified in their elysian fire.They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),And are far up in Heaven--the stars I kneel toIn the sad, silent watches of my night;While even in the meridian glare of dayI see them still--two sweetly scintillantVenuses, unextinguished by the sun!