“This was my dream.--In some auspicious hour, In some sweet solitude, in some green bower, Whither my fate should lead me, there, unseen, 120 I should behold my fancy’s gracious queen, Singing sweet song! that I should hear awhile, Then catch the transient glory of a smile; Then at her feet with trembling hope should kneel, Such as rapt saints and raptured lovers feel: To watch the chaste unfoldings of her heart, In joy to meet, in agony to part, And then in tender song to soothe my grief, And hail, in glorious rhyme, my _Lady of the Leaf_. “To dream these dreams I chose a woody scene, 130 My guardian-shade, the world and me between; A green inclosure, where beside its bound A thorny fence beset its beauties round, Save where some creature’s force had made a way For me to pass, and in my kingdom stray. Here then I stray’d, then sat me down to call, Just as I will’d, my shadowy subjects all! Fruits of all minds conceived on every coast-- Fay, witch, enchanter, devil, demon, ghost; And thus with knights and nymphs, in halls and bowers, 140 In war and love, I pass’d unnumber’d hours. Gross and substantial beings all forgot, } Ideal glories beam’d around the spot, } And all that was, with me, of this poor world was not. } “Yet in this world there was a single scene, That I allow’d with mine to intervene. This house, where never yet my feet had stray’d, I with respect and timid awe survey’d; With pleasing wonder I have oft-times stood, To view these turrets rising o’er the wood; 150 When fancy to the halls and chambers flew, Large, solemn, silent, that I must not view; The moat was then, and then o’er all the ground Tall elms and ancient oaks stretch’d far around; And where the soil forbad the nobler race, Dwarf trees and humbler shrubs had found their place, Forbidding man in their close hold to go, Haw, gatter, holm, the service and the sloe; With tangling weeds that at the bottom grew, And climbers all above their feathery branches threw. 160 Nor path of man or beast was there espied; } But there the birds of darkness loved to hide, } The loathed toad to lodge, and speckled snake to glide. } “To me this hall, thus view’d in part, appear’d A mansion vast. I wonder’d, and I fear’d. There as I wander’d, fancy’s forming eye Could gloomy cells and dungeons dark espy; Winding through these, I caught th’ appalling sound } Of troubled souls, that guilty minds confound, } Where murder made its way, and mischief stalk’d around. } Above the roof were raised the midnight storms, 171 And the wild lights betray’d the shadowy forms. “With all these flights and fancies, then so dear,