Again I find myself alone, and ever

    The same voice like an oracle begins

Its vague and mystic strain, forgetting never

    Reproaches for a hundred hidden sins,

And setting mournful penances in sight,

Terrors and tears for many a watchful night.

Fast change the scenes upon me all the same,

    In hue and drift the regions of a land

Peopled with phantoms, and how dark their aim

    As each dim guest lifts up its shadowy hand [10]

And parts its veil to show 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 and wide

    As the sole vista to a vale of bloom,

Of rose and elm and 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, [20]

And there has passed a cold destroying finger

    O’er every image, and each sacred tone

Sounds low and at a distance, sometimes dying

Like an uncertain sob, or smothered sighing.

Sea-locked, a 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 and dim

By the great shrine of heaven, has fixed its eye

Unsmiling though unsealed on that blue sky. [30]