1.At Castle Wood
2.A Dream
3.The Night Is Darkening Round Me
The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.
The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending
And yet I cannot go.
Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.
4.Fall, Leaves, Fall
Fall, leaves, fall;
die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night's decay
Ushers in a drearier day.
5.To Melancholy
Spirit of love and sorrow---hail!
Thy solemn voice from far I hear,
Mingling with ev'ning's dying gale:
Hail, with this sadly-pleasing tear!
O! at this still, this lonely hour,
Thine own sweet hour of closing day,
Awake thy lute, whose charmful pow'r
Shall call up Fancy to obey.
To paint the wild romantic dream,
That meets the poet's musing eye,
As on the bank of shadowy stream,
He breathes to her the fervid sigh.
O lonely spirit! let thy song
Lead me through all thy sacred haunt;
The minster's moon-light aisles along,
Where spectres raise the midnight chaunt.
I hear their dirges faintly swell!
Then, sink at once in silence drear;
While, from the pillar'd cloister's cell,
Dimly their gliding forms appear!
Lead where the pine-woods wave on high,
Whose pathless sod is darkly seen,
As the cold moon, with trembling eye,
Darts her long beams the leaves between.
Lead to the mountain's dusky head,
Where, far below, in shade profound,
Wide forests, plains, and hamlets, spread,
And sad the chimes of vesper sound.
Or guide me where the dashing oar
Just breaks the stillness of the vale;
As slow it tracks the winding shore,
To meet the ocean's distant sail:
To pebbly banks, that Neptune laves,
With measur'd surges, loud and deep;
Where the dark cliff bends o'er the waves,
And wild the winds of autumn sweep:
There pause at midnight's spectred hour,
And list the long-resounding gale:
And catch the fleeting moon-light's pow'r,
O'er foaming seas and distant sail.'
6.Wild Nights! Wild Nights!
7.On A Dead Violet
The odor from the flower is gone
Which like thy kisses breathed on me;
The colour from the flower is flown
Which glowed of thee and only thee!
A shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form,
It lies on my abandoned breast,
And mocks the heart which yet is warm,
With cold and silent rest.
I weep,--my tears revive it not!
I sigh,--it breathes no more on me;
Its mute and uncomplaining lot
Is such as mine should be
8.Time Long Past
Like the ghost of a dear friend dead
Is Time long past.
A tone which is now forever fled,
A hope which is now forever past,
A love so sweet it could not last,
Was Time long past.
There were sweet dreams in the night
Of Time long past:
And, was it sadness or delight,
Each day a shadow onward cast
Which made us wish it yet might last--
That Time long past.
There is regret, almost remorse,
For Time long past.
'Tis like a child's belovèd corse
A father watches, till at last
Beauty is like remembrance, cast
From Time long past.
9.When I Am Dead
10.Dream Land
Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmed sleep:
Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
Her pleasant lot.
She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
That sadly sings.
Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
Upon her hand.
Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core
Till time shall cease:
Sleep that no pain shall wake;
Night that no morn shall break
Till joy shall overtake
Her perfect peace.
11.Sunset
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