Classic Poem

Again I find myself alone, and ever
The same voice like an oracle, begins
Its, vague & mystic strain, forgetting never
Reproaches for a hundred hidden sins
And setting mournful penances in sight
Terrors & tears for many a watchful night

Fast change the scenes upon me all the same
In hue & drift the regions of a land
Peopled with phantoms & how dark their aim
As each dim guest lifts up its shadowy hand
And parts its veil to shew one withering look
That mortal eye may scarce unblighted brook

I try to find a pleasant path to guide
To fairer scenes—but still they end in gloom
The wilderness will open dark & wide
As the sole vista to a vale of bloom
Of rose & elm & verdure, as these fade
Their sere leaves fall on yonder sandy shade

My dreams, the Gods of my religion linger
In foreign lands, each sundered from his own
And theire has passed a cold destroying finger
O'er every image & each sacred tone
Sounds low & at a distance, sometimes dying
Like an uncertain sob, or smothered sighing

Sea-locked, & cliff-surrounded, or afar
Asleep upon a fountain's marble brim
Asleep in heart, though yonder early star
The first that lit its taper soft & dim
By the great shrine of heaven, has fixed his eye
Unsmiling though unsealed on that blue sky

Left by the sun, as he is left by hope
Bowed in dark, placid cloudlessness above
As silent as the Island's palmy slope
All beach untrodden, all unpeopled grove
A spot to catch each moon-beam as it smiled
Towards that thankless deep so wide & wild

Thankless he too looks up, no grateful bliss
Stirs him to feel the twilight-breeze diffuse
Its balm that bears in every spicy kiss
The mingled breath of southern flowers & dews
Cool & delicious as the fountain's spray
Showered on the shining pavement where he lay