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O'er the midnight moorlands crying,
Thro' the cypress forests
sighing,
In the night-wind madly flying,
Hellish forms
with streaming hair;
In the barren branches creaking,
By the
stagnant swamp-pools speaking,
Past the shore-cliffs ever shrieking,
Damn'd demons of despair.
Once, I think I half remember,
Ere the grey skies of November
Quench'd my youth's aspiring ember,
Liv'd there such a
thing as bliss;
Skies that now are dark were beaming,
Bold and
azure, splendid seeming
Till I learn'd it all was dreaming --
Deadly drowsiness of Dis.
But the stream of Time, swift flowing,
Brings the torment of
half-knowing --
Dimly rushing, blindly going
Past the
never-trodden lea;
And the voyager, repining,
Sees the wicked
death-fires shining,
Hears the wicked petrel's whining
As he helpless drifts to sea.
Evil wings in ether beating;
Vultures at the spirit eating;
Things unseen forever fleeting
Black against the
leering sky.
Ghastly shades of bygone gladness,
Clawing fiends of
future sadness,
Mingle in a cloud of madness
Ever on
the soul to lie.
Thus the living, lone and sobbing,
In the throes of anguish
throbbing,
With the loathsome Furies robbing
Night and
noon of peace and rest.
But beyond the groans and grating
Of
abhorrent Life, is waiting
Sweet Oblivion, culminating
All the years of fruitless quest.
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