Sleep is a spirit, who beside us sits, Or through our frames like some dim glamour flits; From out her form a pearly light is shed, As, from a lily in a lily-bed, A firefly's gleam. Her face is pale as stone, Uncertain as a cloud that lies alone In empty heaven; her diaphanous feet Are easy as the dew or opaline heat Of summer meads. With ears--aurora-pink As dawn's--she leans and listens on the brink Of being, dark with dreadfulness and doubt, Wherein vague lights and shadows move about, And palpitations beat--like some huge heart Of Earth--the surging pulse of which we're part. One hand, that hollows her divining eyes, Glows like the curved moon over twilight skies; And with her gaze she fathoms life and death-- Gulfs, where man's conscience, like a restless breath Of wind, goes wandering; whispering low of things, The irremediable, where sorrow clings. Around her limbs a veil of woven mist Wavers, and turns from fibered amethyst To textured crystal; through which symboled bars Of silver burn, and cabalistic stars Of nebulous gold. Shrouding her feet and hair, Within this woof, fantastic, everywhere, Dreams come and go: the instant images Of things she sees and thinks; realities, Shadows, with which her heart and fancy swarm, That in the veil take momentary form: Now picturing heaven in celestial fire, And now the hell of every soul's desire; Hinting at worlds, God wraps in mystery, Beyond the world we touch and know and see. * * * * * No, never,--no!--would they forget that night.-- Too soon the sleepy birds awoke the light! Too soon, for them, trailing gray skirts of breeze, The drowsy dawn came wandering through the trees. "Too soon," she sighed; and he, "Alas! too soon!" But at their scutcheoned casement, overstrewn Of dew and dreams, the dim wind knocked and cried, "Arise! come forth, O bridegroom, and O bride!" II