Page:Poems of Sentiment and Imagination.djvu/23

Rh Reflected life for many a silent year.

Volumes unoped were lying mouldering,

Vases whose flowers crumbled to the touch,

Gems and rich ornaments, were scattered round,

All useless and neglected. In a hall,

Decked for the revel of the bright and young,

Were lamps all garlanded with withered flowers,

And tables spread with rich untasted wines,

And burdened with their weight of services.

My fears grew tremulous, and I sat down,

Reclining on the velvet now become

Faded and ruined for the want of use,

And tried to think of all that had been here;

But ever and anon my fancy made

A sound to startle me where none could be;

And forms were flitting in the twilight dim,

Caused by the moon's uncertain brilliancy

Of grotesque shapelessness, and mocking me

With looks of grim defiance, 'till my brain

Grew wild with terror, and I screamed, to make

A real sound to fright away my fears.

But echo, waked from such long slumbering,

Gave back a hollow and hoarse moaning voice

That made the place more awful than before.

And shrieking in my terror, I sprang up,

Running from room to room in my despair,

Until from weariness I paused, at length,

Within a chamber vast and desolate,

Hung with a solemn tapestry of black.

Upon a throne of marble, plain and firm,

A giant skeleton sat stark and stiff,

Holding a scepter in his bony hand.

This, then, the prince of all this fair outlay

Of wealth—and loneliness! I mused—and woke,

My head reclining on some few old letters

I had been reading as the twilight faded.

How like this city had my heart become!

Once it was fair, and garnished by Love's hand;