Thou wast won by the perishing glitter of gold, From my heart to the arms of another wast sold, Who hath cast thee away as a scorn, as a weed, On the love of a world that hath doomed thee to bleed. Like a palace whose feasting and music are ended, Whose lights to the dim gulf of death are descended, Whose footfalls are silent, whose arches lie strown, Where the cold wind of night makes a desolate moan, Thy trusted hath left thee, deserted, alone, To the rains and the ivy, sad, beautiful one! Had thy heart been as true--ah, no! never my tongue May add gall to the grief that thy spirit hath wrung; 'Tis enough that I gaze on thee here as thou art, On the wreck of thy hope, in thy ruin of heart, Who art drifting right on to that desolate shore Where the storm of thy sorrow shall chase thee no more. As I slept, o'er my spirit strange terrors there came, Wrought with drapery of midnight, in crimson and flame, Dread as death-fires that burn on the fear-smitten eye, When the far-shaking thunder-tramp reels through the sky. On a fragment that flew from the van of the blast, Like a leaf on the stream of the hurricane cast, Now spurned from their bosom, now hid in the abyss Of black waves that sparkle, crack, thunder, and hiss, It was thou on my breast through the war of the storm, Pale, pale as the shroud that shall compass thy form. There was death on the gale, there was night on the sea, Where I sat on that wreck with the tempest and thee; Through darkness and thunder, flash, shriek, din, and foam, Now deep-clasped in the vale, and now rocked on the dome Of the wave, I was borne o'er the windy expanse Of chill vapor and spray by the terrible glance Of the lightning; I pressed thy cold cheek unto mine; From thy locks fast down-trickled the luminous brine; By thy breath on my brow, by the serpentine path Of the death-flame that blazed on its journey of wrath, I knew thee; I knew, my beloved, thou wast there, In the battle of waves, through my night of despair. Lips of blood through the gloom, and pale phantoms of fear Howled the peals of their horrible glee in my ear; The thin fingers of demons stooped round me to clasp, To wring thy cold form from the strength of my grasp; With their dim eyes upturned, newly torn from the grave, Glared the dead from their weltering shrouds on the wave; Oh! dark was the struggle and fearful and vain Thy cold limbs from their place in the deep to restrain; Dread as Death the black bulk of a surge rumbled o'er, I clasped thee, I felt thee, I saw thee no more!