Above the care of Nature and of State,

Suspended in the noon of Night we wait,

All slumber nursing, to make sweet and pure,

While secret Nature, weaving works the cure.

We are the handmaids of the hollow night,

The angels of the dark, restoring sight;

We go -- the pains of Day to soothe, console --

Awake, arise! Behold thou art made whole.

Reviving Spring, a toast to thy fresh lips!

Thy blush is music, and e'en heaven lurks

In thy thick perfumed hair that hangs about

Thy flowered shoulders like enchanted rain;

Thy sigh is song and thy soft breath a balm,

Dispelling death -- soft loosing his cold grip,

Unravelling darkness in the heart of pain,

As o'er dank waters rings the laugh of dawn.

True poetry is not of earth,

'T is more of Heaven by its birth.

Some fearful sights there be that creep

By night -- I mean that harass sleep;

But tenfold more alarming seem these when

They brave the day, to breathe the air like men.

There surely is some Life beyond

The state of man's mere waking mind:

Whereto -- Earth-blind --

Men's spirits creep

From out the sepulchre of sleep.

Thou Moon! Sun of the Night,

Sister mystic of the Day;

Look down, pause in thy flight!

Calm me with thy aural ray,

Enchanting souls to silver sleep.

Look down from out thy airy keep,

My fevered senses hypnotize;

Shut out the World, whereto Mind flies--

Ambitious Mind, with travail sore;

Its fibre rest, its calm restore.

Success,

The apple of ambition's eye;

The crooked prop of tyranny;

The wind that puffs the changeful sail;

That fills the tuneful pipe;

That gives a color to the pale,

A plumpness to the ripe;

Desire's counterpart,

That men most have at heart.

O Music! language of the soul,

Of love, of God to man;

Bright beam from heaven thrilling,

That lightens sorrow's weight.

Yea, Paris is a festive ton -- a festive

Ton for all! Skate o'er on joy --

Thin crust of gilded, polished joy!

What matters it if Hell's beneath?

How Time doth lash us with sharp pains,

Set loose our teeth, snatch wisps of hair, dim eyes --

And finally bend our backs toward earth

To find the fittest place for burial.

Woman, thou art a river, deep and wide,

Of waters soft and sweet:

Alas! I've never reached the other side;

Though oft I've wet my feet!

Life is a waste of woes,

And Death a river deep,

That ever onward flows,

Troubled, yet asleep.

Thou slanting rain! Thou Hebe of the Skies,

That pours out drink to Earth; thou faithful wife

That with moist tears embraces her prone lord.

Thou mist intensified; thou double dew

That drowns the drought, that heals the parched and burnt --

Thou resurrection rain.

Like a goddess on her azure hill,

The star of my ambition,

The mistress of my dream;

A thing apart,

That we can worship, but not touch;

A wild desire,

That, in the madness of the thought,

Soars higher in its dignity,

And leaves me weeping in the dust.

Passing pleasures do but cloy,

And ape the consciousness of joy:

The wine, the women, and the song,

That tempt us here by night,

Are happy things, though not for long,

To wing oblivious flight

Above the dull, resenting pain,

That, waking, seizes on the brain,

And gives the moody fibre food

To mope, or captiously to brood,

With swollen eyes and torpid legs,

O'er foul and discontented dregs.

Ah! the quiet that did pall

Before I drank indulgence blind

Becomes the panacea in all

I seek, yet, seeking, cannot find.

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