Oh! was it Fancy? or a spell Hurled o’er me by some dreadful power,— That I should carry thus a hell, Within my bosom from that hour? I know not—nor shall care to know; For e’en Repentance will not dart From her pure realm, a light below, Upon my agony of heart; Nor hath Remorse—that mad’ning fire— That final minister of pain And deadliest offspring of deep ire— E’er flashed across my tortured brain: Yet! yet there is a something here Of hideous vacancy and fear, (Not fear which cowards merely feel, Who hear the damnèd’s thunder peal,) A trembling—which the brave confess In this their last and worst distress— Part of the soul it burns a spell, And like her indestructible— Which only those who feel _that_ woe, Brought by an unrepented deed, Can in its fiercest aching know— _For only they are doomed to bleed_. Go thou, whose cunning spirit hears The mystic music of the spheres— Who gazest with unquailing eye Through this star-isled immensity— Whose soul would feed on brighter flowers Than earth’s—and sit with pinion furl’d Where in its lonely grandeur towers The outside pillar of your world— Go! go with all thy boasted art— And read _one_ mystery of the _Heart_. What! think creation in a _sphere_! The real universe is here— _Here! here_ eternally enshrined Within the secret caves of Mind. Blood! blood is reddening on these hands! The blood of more than _one_ is here; Unfaded too its crimson brands Despite of many a weary year, Whose tides of flame and darkness gloom Amid the spirit’s stagnant air— More fearful than the damn’d one’s tomb And withering as despair. Oh! God why was I chos’n for such? I who until that fearful hour— Ah! would not e’en too wildly touch The summer’s very humblest flower. The little bird whose rain-bow wing I saw, in spring time’s roseate eves, With its own beauty quivering Amid the golden orange leaves, I made a friend—as if for me It held its sinless revelry: And e’en I’ve watched within the hall The deadly spider weave his pall, And smiled in very joy to see The cunning workman’s tracery.