"To all its arms doth Mirth unfold, And every heart foregoes its cares; And Hope is busy in the old; The bridal-robe my sister wears. But I alone, alone am weeping; The sweet delusion mocks not me-- Around these walls destruction sweeping More near and near I see! "A torch before my vision glows, But not in Hymen's hand it shines; A flame that to the welkin goes, But not from holy offering-shrines; Glad hands the banquet are preparing, And near, and near the halls of state I hear the God that comes unsparing; I hear the steps of Fate. "And men my prophet-wail deride! The solemn sorrow dies in scorn; And lonely in the waste, I hide The tortured heart that would forewarn. Amidst the happy, unregarded, Mock'd by their fearful joy, I trod; Oh, dark to me the lot awarded, Thou evil Pythian god! "Thine oracle, in vain to be, Oh, wherefore am I thus consign'd With eyes that every truth must see, Lone in the City of the Blind? Cursed with the anguish of a power To view the fates I may not thrall, The hovering tempest still must lower-- The horror must befall! "Boots it the veil to lift, and give To sight the frowning fates beneath? For error is the life we live, And, oh, our knowledge is but death! Take back the clear and awful mirror, Shut from mine eyes the blood-red glare Thy truth is but a gift of terror When mortal lips declare. "My blindness give to me once more[18]-- The gay dim senses that rejoice; The Past's delighted songs are o'er For lips that speak a Prophet's voice. To me _the future_ thou hast granted; I miss _the moment_ from the chain-- The happy Present-Hour enchanted! Take back thy gift again! "Never for me the nuptial wreath The odor-breathing hair shall twine; My heavy heart is bow'd beneath The service of thy dreary shrine. My youth was but by tears corroded,-- My sole familiar is my pain, Each coming ill my heart foreboded, And felt it first--in vain! "How cheer'ly sports the careless mirth-- The life that loves, around I see; Fair youth to pleasant thoughts give birth-- The heart is only sad to me. Not for mine eyes the young spring gloweth, When earth her happy feast-day keeps; The charm of life who ever knoweth That looks into the deeps? "Wrapt in thy bliss, my sister, thine The heart's inebriate rapture-springs;-- Longing with bridal arms to twine The bravest of the Grecian kings. High swells the joyous bosom, seeming Too narrow for its world of love, Nor envies, in its heaven of dreaming, The heaven of gods above!