Like a light, enchanted dream,
float the shadows of the past.
POET.
My days of work ! sole days whereon I lived !
thrice-helovèd solitude !
Now Grod be praised, once more I have arrived
In this old study bare and rude.
These oft-deserted walls, this shabby den.
My faithful lamp, my dusty chair.
My palace, my small world I greet again.
My Muse, immortal, young and fair.
Thank God! we twain may sing here side by side,
1 will reveal to thee my thought.
Thou shalt know all, to thee I will confide
The evil by a woman wrought.
A woman, yes ! (mayhap, poor friends, ye guess.
Or ever I have said the word !)
To such a one my soul was bound, no less
Than is the vassal to his lord.
Detested yoke ! within me to destroy
The vigor and the bloom of youth !
Yet only through my love I caught, in sooth,
A fleeting glimpse of joy.
When by the brook, beneath the evening-star.
On silver sands we twain would stray,
The white wraith of the aspen tree afar
Pointed for us the dusky way.
Once more within the moonlight do I see
