Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/123

 1830-40.] OTWAY CURRY 107 TO A MIDNIGHT PHANTOM. Pale, melancholy one, AVhy art tbou lingering here, Memorial of dark ages gone, Herald of darkness near ? Thou stand'st immortal, undefiled — Even thou, the unknown, the strange, the wild, Spell-word of mortal fear. Thou art a shadowy form, A dream-like thing of air ; My very sighs thy robes deform, So frail, so passing fair ; Thy crown is of the fabled gems, The bright ephemeral diadems That unseen spirits wear. Thou hast revealed to me The lore of phantom song. With thy wild, fearful melody, Chiming the whole night long Forebodings of untimely doom, Of sorroAving years and dying gloom. And unrequited wrong. Through all the dreary night. Thine icy hands, that now Send to the brain their maddening blight. Have pressed upon my brow — My frenzied thoughts all wildly blend With spell- wrought shapes that round me wend, Or down in mockery bow. Away, pale form, away — The break of morn is nigh. And far and dim, beyond the day. The eternal night-glooms lie: Art thou a dweller in the dread Assembly of the mouldering dead, Or in the worlds on high ? Art thou of the blue waves, Or of yon starry clime — An inmate of the ocean graves, Or of the heavens subhme ? Is thy mysterious place of rest The eternal mansions of the blest, Or the dim shores of time? Hast thou forever won A high and glorious name, And proudly grasped and girdled on The panoply of fame ? Or wanderest thou on weary wing, A lonely and a nameless thing. Unchangingly the same ? Thou answerest not. The sealed And hidden things that lie Beyond the grave, are unrevealed, Unseen by mortal eye. Tliy dreamy home is all unknown, For spirits freed by death alone May win the viewless sky. THE CLOSING YEAR.* The year has reached its evening time, And well its closing gloom May warn us of the lonely night That gathers round the tomb. But many a distant year and age May slowly come and go, Before the sleepers of the grave Another spring-time know. And yet, beyond the gloomy vale, Wliere death's dark river flows, On sunniest shores our faith is fixed — Our deathless hopes repose. We trust that when the night of time Shall into morning break. We shall, from long and heavy sleep, With sono; and gladness wake.
 * Now first published.