Come, Poesy, and with thy shadowy hands Cover me softly, singing all the night-- In thy dear presence find I best delight; Even the saint that stands Tending the gate of heaven, involved in beams Of rarest glory, to my mortal eyes Pales from the blest insanity of dreams That round thee lies. Unto the dusky borders of the grove Where gray-haired Saturn, silent as a stone, Sat in his grief alone, Or where young Venus, searching for her love, Walked through the clouds, I pray, Bear me to-night away. Or wade with me through snows Drifted in loose fantastic curves aside, From humble doors where Love and Faith abide, And no rough winter blows, Chilling the beauty of affections fair, Cabined securely there. Where round their fingers winding the white slips That crown his forehead, on the grandsire's knees, Sit merry children, teasing about ships Lost in the perilous seas; Or listening with a troublous joy, yet deep, To stories about battles, or of storms, Till weary grown, and drowsing into sleep, Slide they from out his arms. Where, by the log-heap fire, As the pane rattles and the cricket sings, I with the gray-haired sire May talk of vanished summer-times and springs, And harmlessly and cheerfully beguile The long, long hours-- The happier for the snows that drift the while About the flowers. Winter, wilt keep the love I offer thee? No mesh of flowers is bound about my brow; From life's fair summer I am hastening now, And as I sink my knee, Dimpling the beauty of thy bed of snow-- Dowerless, I can but say-- O, cast me not away! CARLYLE ON THE OPERA.