A picture hangs in the dome there, On leather with gold bedight, Whose beauty oft when I roam there Sheds hope on my troubled night. For cherubs and flowers are wreathing Our Lady with tender grace; Her eyes, cheeks, and lips half-breathing Resemble my loved one's face. 12[16] I am not wroth, my own lost love, although My heart is breaking--wroth I am not, no! For all thou dost in diamonds blaze, no ray Of light into thy heart's night finds its way. I saw thee in a dream. Oh, piteous sight! I saw thy heart all empty, all in night; I saw the serpent gnawing at thy heart; I saw how wretched, O my love, thou art! 13[17] When thou shalt lie, my darling, low In the dark grave, where they hide thee, Then down to thee I will surely go, And nestle in beside thee. Wildly I'll kiss and clasp thee there, Pale, cold, and silent lying; Shout, shudder, weep in dumb despair, Beside my dead love dying. The midnight calls, up rise the dead, And dance in airy swarms there; We twain quit not our earthly bed, I lie wrapt in your arms there. Up rise the dead; the Judgment-day To bliss or anguish calls them; We twain lie on as before we lay, And heed not what befalls them. 14[18] A young man loved a maiden, But she for another has sigh'd; That other, he loves another, And makes her at length his bride. The maiden marries, in anger, The first adventurous wight That chance may fling before her; The youth is in piteous plight. The story is old as ages, Yet happens again and again; The last to whom it happen'd, His heart is rent in twain. 15[19] A lonely pine is standing On the crest of a northern height; He sleeps, and a snow-wrought mantle Enshrouds him through the night. He's dreaming of a palm-tree Afar in a tropic land, That grieves alone in silence 'Mid quivering leagues of sand. 16[20] My love, we were sitting together In a skiff, thou and I alone; 'Twas night, very still was the weather, Still the great sea we floated on. Fair isles in the moonlight were lying, Like spirits, asleep in a trance; Their strains of sweet music were sighing, And the mists heaved in an eery dance. And ever, more sweet, the strains rose there, The mists flitted lightly and free; But we floated on with our woes there, Forlorn on that wide, wide sea. 17[21] I see thee nightly in dreams, my sweet, Thine eyes the old welcome making, And I fling me down at thy dear feet With the cry of a heart that is breaking. Thou lookest at me in woful wise With a smile so sad and holy, And pearly tear-drops from thine eyes Steal silently and slowly. Whispering a word, thou lay'st on my hair A wreath with sad cypress shotten; awake, the wreath is no longer there, And the word I have forgotten. * * * * * SONNETS (1822)