Once, like us, you took your station Watchers for a purer fire; But you droop'd in expectation, And you wearied in desire. When the first rose flush was steeping All the frore peak's awful crown, Shepherds say, they found you sleeping In some windless valley, farther down. Then you wept, and slowly raising Your dozed eyelids, sought again, Half in doubt, they say, and gazing Sadly back, the seats of men;-- Snatch'd a turbid inspiration From some transient earthly sun, And proclaim'd your vain ovation For those mimic raptures you had won.... * * * * * With a sad, majestic motion, With a stately, slow surprise, From their earthward-bound devotion Lifting up your languid eyes-- Would you freeze my too loud boldness, Dumbly smiling as you go, One faint frown of distant coldness Flitting fast across each marble brow? Do I brighten at your sorrow, O sweet Pleaders?--doth my lot Find assurance in to-morrow Of one joy, which you have not? O, speak once, and shame my sadness! Let this sobbing, Phrygian strain, Mock'd and baffled by your gladness, Mar the music of your feasts in vain! * * * * * Scent, and song, and light, and flowers! Gust on gust, the harsh winds blow-- Come, bind up those ringlet showers! Roses for that dreaming brow! Come, once more that ancient lightness, Glancing feet, and eager eyes! Let your broad lamps flash the brightness Which the sorrow-stricken day denies! Through black depths of serried shadows, Up cold aisles of buried glade; In the midst of river-meadows Where the looming kine are laid; From your dazzled windows streaming, From your humming festal room, Deep and far, a broken gleaming Reels and shivers on the ruffled gloom. Where I stand, the grass is glowing; Doubtless you are passing fair! But I hear the north wind blowing, And I feel the cold night-air. Can I look on your sweet faces, And your proud heads backward thrown, From this dusk of leaf-strewn places With the dumb woods and the night alone? Yet, indeed, this flux of guesses-- Mad delight, and frozen calms-- Mirth to-day and vine-bound tresses, And to-morrow--folded palms; Is this all? this balanced measure? Could life run no happier way? Joyous, at the height of pleasure, Passive at the nadir of dismay?