Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/454

436 And from dull embers chilling Crept shadows darkly filling The silent place, and thrilling His fancy as they grew. Here, with brow bared to heaven, In starry night he stood, With the lost star of seven Feeling sad brotherhood. Here in the sobbing showers Of dark autumnal hours He heard suspected powers Shriek through the stormy wood. From visions of Apollo And of Astarte s bliss, He gazed into the hollow And hopeless vale of Dis; And though earth were surrounded By heaven, it still was mounded With graves. His soul had sounded The dolorous abyss. Proud, mad, but not defiant, He touched at heaven and hell. Fate found a rare soul pliant And rung her changes well. Alternately his lyre, Stranded with strings of fire, Led earth s most happy choir Or flashed with Israfel.