But _cannot_ from a danger nigh. What tho’ the moon—tho’ the white moon Shed all the splendour of her noon, _Her_ smile is chilly—and _her_ beam, In that time of dreariness, will seem (So like you gather in your breath) A portrait taken after death. And boyhood is a summer sun Whose waning is the dreariest one— For all we live to know is known, And all we seek to keep hath flown— Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall With the noon-day beauty—which is all. I reach’d my home—my home no more— For all had flown who made it so— I pass’d from out its mossy door, And, tho’ my tread was soft and low, A voice came from the threshold stone Of one whom I had earlier known— O! I defy thee, Hell, to show On beds of fire that burn below, A humbler heart—a deeper woe. Father, I firmly do believe— I _know_—for Death, who comes for me From regions of the blest afar, Where there is nothing to deceive, Hath left his iron gate ajar, And rays of truth you cannot see Are flashing thro’ Eternity— I do believe that Eblis hath A snare in ev’ry human path— Else how, when in the holy grove I wandered of the idol, Love, Who daily scents his snowy wings With incense of burnt offerings From the most unpolluted things, Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven Above with trelliced rays from Heaven No mote may shun—no tiniest fly The light’ning of his eagle eye— How was it that Ambition crept, Unseen, amid the revels there, Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt In the tangles of Love’s very hair? 1829. TO HELEN Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o’er a perfumed sea, The weary way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome. Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I me thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand! Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy-land! 1831. THE VALLEY OF UNREST