Songs of the Spirit

Is the last song made, whose faint melodies Brushed the pale air with an archangel’s wing ? Is Hope divorced, our queen ? Is Love discrowned, our King ? Far o’er the Ocean sets a fiery star And meteors cross the angry horizon, A comet blazes, reddening the bar Of silver water where the moonlight shone, And, as I stand upon the cliff like one Amazed, a shape seems always at my back To whisper wickedness, o’erheard of none, And stealthily to follow on my track, And cloke my lifted eyes with suffocating black. Vainly I turn to seek him, for my eyes Are dimmed with saltness never born of brine ; Vainly I fight the air, he sneers, and lies, And laughs at all this agony of mine, And chills my heart, and desecrates the shrine Where Love his holy incense used to burn, And mocks those thoughts, those songs, those looks divine 42