| |
| YES, Cara mine, I know that I shall stand | |
| Upon the seashore soon, | |
| And watch the waves that die upon the strand, | |
| And the immortal moon. | |
| |
| One mew will hover ’mid the drowsy damp | 5 |
| That clogs the breezes there, | |
| One star suspend her solitary lamp, | |
| High in the viewless air. | |
| |
| My straining eyes will mark a distant oar, | |
| Grazing the supple sea, | 10 |
| And a light pinnace speeding to the shore, | |
| And in it thou wilt be. | |
| |
| The empty veins with life no more are warm, | |
| The eyes no longer shine, | |
| The pale star gazes through the pallid form, | 15 |
| What matter? thou art mine. | |
| |
| The Love which, while it walk’d the earth, could meet | |
| No place to lay its head, | |
| Now reigns unchallenged in the winding-sheet, | |
| Nor fears its kindred dead. | 20 |
| |
| For Love dwells with the dead, though more sedate, | |
| Chasten’d, and mild it seems; | |
| While Avarice, Envy, Jealousy, and Hate, | |
| With them are only dreams. | |
| |
| I step into the boat, our steady prore | 25 |
| Furrows the still moonlight; | |
| The sea is merry with our plashing oar, | |
| With our quick rudder white. | |
| |
| No word has pass’d thy lips, but yet I know | |
| Well where our course will be; | 30 |
| We leave the worn-out world—is it not so?— | |
| The uncorrupted sea | |
| |
| To cross, and gain some isle in whose sweet shade | |
| Even Slavery is free; | |
| And careless Care on smoothest rose-leaves laid | 35 |
| Becomes Tranquillity. | |
| |
| Far, far the haunts where, rob’d in gory weeds, | |
| Grim War his court doth hold, | |
| And mumbling Superstition counts his beads, | |
| And Avarice his gold. | 40 |
| |
| But Love and Death, the comrades and the twins, | |
| Uninterrupted reign; | |
| Where is it that one ends and one begins? | |
| And are they one or twain? | |
| |
| And all is like thy soul, pensive and fair, | 45 |
| Veil’d in a shadowy dress, | |
| And strewn with gems more rich were they more rare, | |
| And steep’d in balminess. | |
| |
| No drossy shape of earthliness appears | |
| On the phantastic coast, | 50 |
| 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, | 55 |
| Of Love caressing Death. | |
| |
| So let us hasten, Love! Our steady prore | |
| Furrows the still moonlight; | |
| The sea is merry with our plashing oar, | |
| With our quick rudder white. | 60 |
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