There seemed around me some dark chain
Which still as I essayed to soar
Baffled, alas, each wild endeavor;
Dead lay my wings as they have lain
Since that sad hour and will remain--
So wills the offended God--for ever!
It was to yonder star I traced
Her journey up the illumined waste--
That isle in the blue firmament
To which so oft her fancy went
In wishes and in dreams before,
And which was now--such, Purity,
Thy blest reward--ordained to be
Her home of light for evermore!
Once--or did I but fancy so?--
Even in her flight to that fair sphere,
Mid all her spirit's new-felt glow,
A pitying look she turned below
On him who stood in darkness here;
Him whom perhaps if vain regret
Can dwell in heaven she pities yet;
And oft when looking to this dim
And distant world remembers him.
But soon that passing dream was gone;
Farther and farther off she shone,
Till lessened to a point as small
As are those specks that yonder burn,--
Those vivid drops of light that fall
The last from Day's exhausted urn.
And when at length she merged, afar,
Into her own immortal star,
And when at length my straining sight
Had caught her wing's last fading ray,
That minute from my soul the light
Of heaven and love both past away;
And I forgot my home, my birth,
Profaned my spirit, sunk my brow,
And revelled in gross joys of earth
Till I became--what I am now!
The Spirit bowed his head in shame;
A shame that of itself would tell--
Were there not even those breaks of flame,
Celestial, thro' his clouded frame--
How grand the height from which he fell!
That holy Shame which ne'er forgets
The unblenched renown it used to wear;
Whose blush remains when Virtue sets
To show her sunshine _has_ been there.
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