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404   THE SISTERS OF THE WEST.

I would uprear a rude and moss-crown'd dwelling,
And muse above a solitary hearth.

There would I summon many a vanish'd vision,
Around my threshold and my couch to draw;
And far from earthly fane, and man's derision,
Adore, according to the living law.
There, when mine eyes had closed in sleep eternal,
Still would I wish to take my quiet rest,
Shined in that solitude profund and vernal,
The boughs above, the wild flowers on my breast.

LINES.

"You must make 
That heart a tomb, and in it bury deep
Its young and beautiful feelings."
Barry Cornwall.

LAY them, lay them in their graves,
Those feelings, deep and fine;
Henceforth their marble tomb shall be
The heart that was their shrine.
Bury them with all the dreams
Of those departed years,
When joy was all too bright for smiles!
And grief too deep for tears!

Close within that stony vault,
Which never more shall ope,
The bitterness of memory,
The feverishness of hope,
The yearnings deep for sympathy,
That deep within thee dwell,
The love that finds no answering flame,
And sickens in its cell.

THE SISTERS OF THE WEST.   405

Spread, O spread above that tomb
A pall of purple pride,
To veil the darkness and the gloom
That 'neath its folds abide.
Bear thee gaily in the dance,
And proudly in the hall;
I charge thee, let no eye behold
What moulders 'neath that pall.

It is thus that I have done,
For such hath been my doom;
My heart was once a fiery shrine,
And now it is—a tomb!
My heart was once a storm-swept sea,
And now it is that lake,
O'er whose dead surface tempests rush,
Nor bid its waters wake.

Yet the ghosts of those dead thoughts,
Those buried hopes and fears,
They rise at times across the soul,
Recalling vanish'd years:
They float in dim and pale array,
Those phantoms of the past;
They freeze my blood—they chill my brain,
As with an Iceland blast.

Oh! the spectres of the soul,
How fearfully they rise;
Each looking from its fleecy shroud
With cold, clear spirit eyes.
How chill a print their icy feet
Leave on the burning brain;
How bleak a shadow do they cast,
That dim and awful train.

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-06-29 20:21:50 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-06-29 20:29:17