108
Of assured reality,
Than was left by Phantasy
Stamped and coloured on my sprite,
In a dream of yesternight.
Than was left by Phantasy
Stamped and coloured on my sprite,
In a dream of yesternight.
In a bark, methought, lone steering,
I was cast on Ocean's strife;
This, 'twas whispered in my hearing,
Meant the sea of life.
Sad regrets from past existence
Came, like gales of chilling breath;
Shadowed in the forward distance
Lay the land of Death.
Now seeming more, now less remote,
On that dim-seen shore, methought,
I beheld two hands a space
Slow unshroud a spectre's face;
And my flesh's hair upstood,—
'Twas mine own similitude.—
I was cast on Ocean's strife;
This, 'twas whispered in my hearing,
Meant the sea of life.
Sad regrets from past existence
Came, like gales of chilling breath;
Shadowed in the forward distance
Lay the land of Death.
Now seeming more, now less remote,
On that dim-seen shore, methought,
I beheld two hands a space
Slow unshroud a spectre's face;
And my flesh's hair upstood,—
'Twas mine own similitude.—
But my soul revived at seeing
Ocean, like an emerald spark,
Kindle, while an air-dropt being
Smiling steered my bark.
Heaven-like—yet he looked as human
As supernal beauty can,
More compassionate than woman,
Lordly more than man.
And as some sweet clarion's breath
Stirs the soldier's scorn of death—
So his accents bade me brook
The spectre's eyes of icy look,
Till it shut them—turned its head,
Like a beaten foe, and fled.
Ocean, like an emerald spark,
Kindle, while an air-dropt being
Smiling steered my bark.
Heaven-like—yet he looked as human
As supernal beauty can,
More compassionate than woman,
Lordly more than man.
And as some sweet clarion's breath
Stirs the soldier's scorn of death—
So his accents bade me brook
The spectre's eyes of icy look,
Till it shut them—turned its head,
Like a beaten foe, and fled.
