TO MY DREAM-LOVE.

Where art thou, oh! my Beautiful? Afar

I seek thee sadly, till the day is done,

And o'er the splendour of the setting sun,

Cold, calm, and silvery, floats the evening star;

Where art thou? Ah! where art thou, hid in light

That haunts me, yet still wraps thee from my sight?

Not wholly — ah! not wholly — still Love's eyes

Trace thy dim beauty through the mystic veil,

Like the young moon that glimmers faint and pale,

At noontide through the sun-web of the skies;

But ah! I ope mine arms, and thou art gone,

And only Memory knows where thou hast shone.

Night — Night the tender, the compassionate,

Binds thee, gem-like, amid her raven hair;

I dream — I see — I feel that thou art there —

And stand all weeping at Sleep's golden gate,

Till the leaves open, and the glory streams

Down through my trancèd soul in radiant dreams.

Too short — too short — soon comes the chilly morn,

To shake from love's boughs all their sleep-born bloom,

And wake my heart back to its bitter doom,

Sending me through the land down-cast, forlorn,

Whilst thou, my Beautiful, art far away,

Bearing the brightness from my joyless day.

I stand and gaze across Earth's fairest sea,

And still the plashing of the restless main,

Sounds like the clashing of a prisoner's chain,

That binds me, oh! my Beautiful, from thee.

Oh! sea-bird, flashing past on snow-white wing,

Bear my soul to her in thy wandering.

My heart is weary gazing o'er the sea;

O'er the long dreary lines that close the sky;

Through solemn sun-sets ever mournfully,

Gazing in vain, my Beautiful, for thee;

Hearing the sullen waves for evermore

Dashing around me on the lonely shore.

But tides creep lazily about the sands,

Washing frail landmarks, Lethe-like, away,

And though their records perish day by day,

Still stand I ever, with close claspèd hands,

Gazing far westward o'er the heaving sea,

Gazing in vain, my Beautiful, for thee.