"Who contemplates, aspires, or dreams, is not Alone: he peoples with rich thoughts the spot. The only loneliness--how dark and blind!-- Is that where fancy cannot dupe the mind; Where the heart, sick, despondent, tired with all, Looks joyless round, and sees the dungeon wall; When even God is silent, and the curse Of torpor settles on the universe; When prayer is powerless, and one sense of dearth Abysses all, _save_ solitude, on earth! So sate the bride!--the drooping form, the eye Vacant, yet fix'd,--that air which Misery, The heart's Medusa, hardens into stone, Sculptured the Death which dwelleth in the lone! Oh, the wild burst of joy,--the life that came } Swift, brightening, bounding through the lips and frame, } When o'er the floors I stole, and whisper'd soft her name! } 'Come--come at last! Oh, rapture!' Who can say Why meaner natures hold mysterious sway Over the nobler? Why mine orb malign Ruled as a fate a spirit so divine; Giving or light or darkness all its own Unto a star so near the Sapphire Throne? "'So thou art come!' 'Hush! say whose lips reveal'd All _these_ soft traitors swore to guard conceal'd-- Our love--my name?' 'Not I--not I--thy wife! No, truth to thee more dear than fame, than life: A friend, my father's friend, the secret told; How guess'd I know not. Oh! if Love controll'd My heart that hour--that bitter hour--when, there Bent that old man who----Husband, hear my prayer Have mercy on my father!--break, oh, break This crushing silence!--bid his daughter speak, And say, Thou'rt not dishonour'd?'