They make us what we were not-what they will, And shake us with the vision that's gone by, The dread of vanish'd shadows-Are they so? Is not the past all shadow? What are they? Creations of the mind?-The mind can make Substance, and people planets of its own With beings brighter than have been, and give A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh, I would recall a vision which I dream'd Perchance in sleep-for in itself a thought, A slumbering thought, is capable of years, And curdles a long life into one hour.
I saw two beings in the hues of youth Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill, Green and of mild declivity, the last As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such, Save that there was no sea to lave its base, But a most living landscape, and the wave Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs;-the hill Was crown'd with a peculiar diadem Of trees, in circular array, so fix'd,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man : These two, a maiden and a youth, were there Gazing-the one on all that was beneath Fair as herself-but the boy gazed on her; And both were young, and one was beautiful: And both were young-yet not alike in youth. As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge The maid was on the eve of womanhood; The boy had fewer summers, but his heart Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye There was but one beloved face on earth, And that was shining on him; he had look'd Upon it till it could not pass away;
He had no breath, no being, but in her's;
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his sight, For his eye followed her's, and saw with her's, Which coloured all his objects:-he had ceased To live within himself; she was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts, Which terminated all: upon a tone,
A touch of her's, his blood would ebb and flow, And his cheek change tempestuously-his heart Unknowing of its cause of agony.
But she in these fond feelings had no share: Her sighs were not for him; to her he was Even as a brother-but no more; 'twas much, For brotherless she was, save in the name Her infant friendship had bestowed on him; Herself the solitary scion left
Of a time-honoured race. It was a name
Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not-and why?
Time taught him a deep answer-when she loved
Another; even now she loved another,
And on the summit of that hill she stood
Looking afar if yet her lover's steed
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. There was an ancient mansion, and before
Its walls there was a steed caparisoned: Within an antique Oratory stood
The Boy of whom I spake ;-he was alone, And pale, and pacing to and fro; anon
He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced
Words which I could not guess of; then he lean'd His bow'd head on his hands, and shook as 'twere With a convulsion-then arose again,
And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear What he had written, but he shed no tears.
And he did calm himself, and fix his brow Into a kind of quiet; as he paused,
The Lady of his love re-entered there,
She was serene and smiling then, and yet
She knew she was by him beloved,—she knew, For quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart Was darken'd with her shadow, and she saw That he was wretched, but she saw not all.
He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp He took her hand; a moment o'er his face A tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced, and then it faded, as it came;
He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps Retired, but not as bidding her adieu,
For they did part with mutual smiles; he pass'd From out the massy gate of that old Hall, And mounting on his steed he went his way; And ne'er repassed that hoary threshold more.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds Of fiery climes he made himself a home, And his Soul drank their sunbeams; he was girt With strange and dusky aspects; he was not Himself like what he had been; on the sea And on the shore he was a wanderer; There was a mass of many images Crowded like waves upon me, but he was A part of all; and in the last he lay Reposing from the noon-tide sultriness, Couched among fallen columns, in the shade Of ruin'd walls that had survived the names Of those who rear'd them; by his sleeping side
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