Is it an idle fantasy,
That in the twilight's violet gloom,
When waves are singing out at sea,
And shadows fill the room,—

The mist assumes before my gaze,
A human form of exquisite grace,
And by the melancholy haze,
Is veiled a peerless face?—

A maiden loved when life was new,
Her soul was trust, her eyes a prayer;
She faded quite. Can it be true
I see her in the air?

Her eyes are crystals, dropping tears,
Her hair reflects the silver moon;
Will ecstasy or sudden fears
Conquer my heart more soon?

Into the town of Conemaugh,
Striking the people's souls with awe,
Dashed a rider, aflame and pale,
Never alighting to tell his tale,
Sitting his big bay horse astride.
“Run for your lives to the hills!” he cried;
“Run to the hills!” was what he said,
As he waved his hand and dashed ahead.

“Run for your lives to the hills!” he cried,
Spurring his horse, whose reeking side
Was flecked with foam as red as flame.
Whither he goes and whence he came
Nobody knows. They see his horse
Plunging on in his frantic course,
Veins distended and nostrils wide,

Inert in his chair,
In a candle's guttering glow;
His bottle empty,
His fire sunk low;
With drug-sealed lids shut fast,
Unsated mouth ajar,
This darkened phantasm walks
Where nightmares are:

In a frenzy of life and light,
Crisscross—a menacing throng—
They gibe, they squeal at the stranger,
Jostling along,
Their faces cadaverous grey.
While on high from an attic stare
Horrors, in beauty apparelled,
Down the dark air.

A stream gurgles over its stones,
The chambers within are a-fire.
Stumble his shadowy feet

In what house, the jade flute that sends these dark notes drifting,
scattering on the spring wind that fills Lo-yang?
Tonight if we should hear the willow-breaking song,
who could help but long for the gardens of home?

In this cold monument lies one,
That I knew who has lain upon,
The happier He: her sight would charm,
And touch have kept King David warm.
Lovely, as is the dawning East,
Was this marble's frozen guest;
As soft, and snowy, as that down
Adorns the blow-ball's frizzled crown;
As straight and slender as the crest,
Or antlet of the one-beam'd beast;
Pleasant as th' odorous month of May:
As glorious, and as light as day.

Whom I admir'd, as soon as knew,
And now her memory pursue
With such a superstitious lust,
That I could fumble with her dust.

In our Museum galleries
To-day I lingered o'er the prize
Dead Greece vouchsafes to living eyes,—
Her Art for ever in fresh wise
From hour to hour rejoicing me.
Sighing I turned at last to win
Once more the London dirt and din;
And as I made the swing-door spin
And issued, they were hoisting in
A wingèd beast from Nineveh.

A human face the creature wore,
And hoofs behind and hoofs before,
And flanks with dark runes fretted o'er.
'Twas bull, 'twas mitred Minotaur,
A dead disbowelled mystery;
The mummy of a buried faith

There was an Old Person of Buda,
Whose conduct grew ruder and ruder;
Till at last, with a hammer, they silenced his clamour,
By smashing that Person of Buda.

There was an Old Man of Peru,
Who never knew what he should do;
So he tore off his hair, and behaved like a bear,
That intrinsic Old Man of Peru.

There was a man of double deed
Who sowed his garden full of seed.
When the seed began to grow,
It was like a garden full of snow.
When the snow began to melt,
It was like a ship without a bell.
When the ship began to sail,
It was like a bird without a tail.
When the bird began to fly,
It was like an eagle in the sky.
When the sky began to roar,
It was like a lion at the door.
When the door began to crack,
It was like a stick across my back.
When my back began to smart,
It was like a penknife in my heart.
When my heart began to bleed,

There is an olden story,
'Tis a legend, so I'm told,
How the flowerets gave a banquet,
In the ivied days of old;
How the posies gave a party once
That wound up with a ball,
How they held it in a valley,
Down in “Flowery Kingdom Hall.”

The flowers of every clime were there,
Of high and low degree,
All with their petals polished,
In sweet aromatic glee.
They met down in this woodland
In the soft and ambient air,
Each in its lolling loveliness,
Exhaled a perfume rare.

An orchestra of Blue Bells
Sat upon a mossy knoll