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But the traveller, travelling through it,

May not-dare not openly view it ;
Never its mysteries are exposed

To the weak human eye unclosed;

So wills its King, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid ;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes

Beholds it but through darkened glasses.

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,

Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly

From this ultimate dim Thule.

HYMN.

T morn―at noon-at twilight dim--
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
In joy and woe--in good and ill—
Mother of God, be with me still!
When the Hours flew brightly by,

And not a cloud obscured the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be,

Thy grace did guide to thine and thee;

Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast

Darkly my Present and my Past,

Let my Future radiant shine

With sweet hopes of thee and thine!

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THE SLEEPER,

Ar midnight, in the month of June,

I stand beneath the mystic moon.

An opiate vapour, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,

And, softly dripping, drop by drop,

Upon the quiet mountain top,

Steals drowsily and musically

Into the universal valley.

The rosemary nods upon the grave;

The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin moulders into rest;

Looking like Lethe, see! the lake

A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps !—and lo! where lies

(Her casement open to the skies)
Irene, with her Destinies !

Oh, lady bright! can it be right—-—-

This window open to the night?

The wanton airs, from the tree-top,

Laughingly through the lattice dropThe bodiless airs, a wizard rout,

Flit through thy chamber in and out,

And wave the curtain canopy

So fitfully so fearfully

Above the close and fringed lid

'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid,

That, o'er the floor and down the wall,

Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!

Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?

Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come o'er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees

Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!

Strange, above all, thy length of tress,

And this all solemn silentness!

The lady sleeps. Oh, may her sleep,

Which is enduring, so be deep!

Heaven have her in its sacred keep!

This chamber changed for one more holy,

This bed for one more melancholy,

I pray to God that she may lie

For ever with unopened eye,

While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!

My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep

As it is lasting, so be deep!

Soft may the worms about her creep !

Far in the forest, dim and old,

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