On the arching sky The Painter turned and saw its thousand fires. Around his peaceful form the breezes stole With viewless pinions from Æolus sent, While ever and anon a passing breath, More eager than its fellow, rippled up The curls that gathered on his glorious brow. Like one whose spirit-form was not of Earth He seemed that hour, for o’er him halos hung, Such only as the vales of Paradise Enclose around the beings of their birth. And as he gazed upon the star-lit hall, And then with straining sight looked on the sky, As if to catch from it some angel glance, He sat him down and buried up his face. With agony oppressed, his very heart Was shrunk and withered, e’en as when a bird Whose little life has been a holyday, Is overwhelmed as summer clouds have wept. Why thus did shadows press upon his soul, And with their awful wings fright hopes away? Why thus disturbed? Fame in his way had strewn With reckless hand, her fairest, proudest gifts— Had taught his name to echo far amid The ages yet unborn, as though a God From high Olympus he’d been missioned forth! And yet his heart was sad—for in his dreams There broke upon his fancy such a form As dwelleth only in the Elfin-land. For her he pined—for her he breathed a sigh— And prayed to God that she might come to him, And in his waking moments bid him live. And as, with gloom and darkness thick’ning round, He sat and wept for joys that might not be, From out the dim and mystic land of dreams, There came to him entranced such visioned sights As never mortal eye had seen before. Back on the crumbling path of Time he went, And stood amid the light of ancient days— Amidst the treasures of the mighty dead! The seal that held the past was shriveled up, And from the breathing ruins wondrous forms Swept by, and walked again the sea of Life. The young and beautiful of olden time— The giant habitants whose genius swayed The visible creation at its dawn, All gathered there in that fantastic realm, To swell that ghostly throng!