I saw but them-they were the world to me.

I saw but them-saw only them for hours-

Saw only them until the moon went down.

What wild heart-histories seemed to lie enwritten

Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres!

How dark a woe! yet how sublime a hope!

How silently serene a sea of pride!

How daring an ambition! yet how deep-

How fathomless a capacity for love!

But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,

Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;

And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees

Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained.

They would not go-they never yet have gone.

Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,

They have not left me (as my hopes have) since.

They follow me-they lead me through the years.

They are my ministers-yet I their slave.

Their office is to illumine and enkindle-

My duty, to be saved by their bright light,

And purified in their electric fire,

And sanctified in their Elysian fire.

They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),

And are far up in heaven-the stars I kneel to

In the sad, silent watches of my night;

While even in the meridian glare of day

I see them still-two sweetly scintillant

Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!

The City in the Sea

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne

In a strange city lying alone

Far down within the dim West

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best

Have gone to their eternal rest.