Page:Flowers of Loveliness.pdf/19



Pale are her enchanted slumbers; Pale is she with many dreams; That white brow the turban cumbers; Wan, yet feverish she seems. Not the fountain's silvery flowing Lulls that haunted sleep; Round her are wild visions growing, Such as wake and weep.

Drugg'd is that impassioned sleeping, Sleep that is like life; By the unquiet pillow keeping Hope, and fear, and strife. Fast the fatal flower has bound her In its heavy spell; Strange wild phantasms surround her, But she knows them well.

First, there comes an hour Elysian, Would it might remain! Bringing back Love's early vision, But without its pain. Soft the myrtles of the wild wood, Round her path-way part; Happy like a guileless childhood, With a woman’s heart.

But a deeper shadow closes On those lovely hours, And the opening sky discloses Old ancestral towers: There they stand—white, stately, solemn; While she looks, they fall; Round her lies the broken column, And the ruined wall.