THE WINE OF SONG.

Within Fancy's Halls I sit, and quaff

Rich draughts of the Wine of Song,

And I drink, and drink,

To the very brink

Of delirium wild and strong,

Till I lose all sense of the outer world,

And see not the human throng.

The lyral chords of each rising thought

Are swept by a hand unseen;

And I glide, and glide,

With my music bride,

Where few spiritless souls have been;

And I soar afar on wings of sound,

With my fair AEolian Queen.

Deep, deeper still, from the springs of Thought

I quaff, till the fount is dry;

And I climb, and climb,

To a height sublime,

Up the stars of some lyric sky,

Where I seem to rise upon airs that melt

Into song as they pass by.

Millennial rounds of bliss I live,

Withdrawn from my cumbrous clay,

As I sweep, and sweep,

Through infinite deep

On deep of that starry spray;

Myself a sound on its world-wide round,

A tone on its spheral way.

And wheresoe'er through the wondrous space

My soul wings its noiseless flight,

On their astral rounds

Float divinest sounds,

Unseen, save by spirit-sight,

Obeying some wise, eternal law,

As fixed as the law of light.

But, oh, when my cup of dainty bliss

Is drained of the Wine of Song,

How I fall, and fall,

At the sober call

Of the body, that waiteth long

To hurry me back to its cares terrene,

And earth's spiritless human throng.