O Reason! who shall say what spells renew, When least we look for it, thy broken clew! Through what small vistas o’er the darken’d brain Thy intellectual day-beam bursts again; And how, like forts, to which beleaguerers win Unhop’d-for entrance through some friend within, One clear idea, waken’d in the breast By memory’s magic, lets in all the rest! Would it were thus, unhappy girl, with thee! But though light came, it came but partially; Enough to show the maze, in which thy sense Wander’d about,—but not to guide it thence; Enough to glimmer o’er the yawning wave, But not to point the harbour which might save. Hours of delight and peace, long left behind, With that dear form came rushing o’er her mind; But, oh! to think how deep her soul had gone In shame and falsehood since those moments shone; And, then, her oath—_there_ madness lay again, And, shuddering, back she sunk into her chain Of mental darkness, as if blest to flee From light, whose every glimpse was agony! Yet, _one_ relief this glance of former years Brought, mingled with its pain,—tears, floods of tears, Long frozen at her heart, but now like rills Let loose in spring-time from the snowy hills, And gushing warm, after a sleep of frost, Through valleys where their flow had long been lost. Sad and subdued, for the first time her frame Trembled with horror, when the summons came (A summons proud and rare, which all but she, And she, till now, had heard with ecstasy,) To meet MOKANNA at his place of prayer, A garden oratory, cool and fair, By the stream’s side, where still at close of day The Prophet of the Veil retir’d to pray; Sometimes alone—but, oftener far, with one, One chosen nymph to share his orison.