And art thou gone, imperial shade, Whose living strain so lately breathed— Has thy wild lyre so soon bequeathed Its echoes to the dead? Art gone indeed? Then fare thee well— No living bard like thee can tell, By poesy's resistless spell, To charm life's melancholy glade!
Oh say 'tis but a baseless dream Thy death's abhorred phantasma shows— In form unreal by thee flows The phlegethontic stream; But no: — I see too strongly clear Thine altered form like mist appear— And feel, in agony of fear, Thine eyes' unearthly gleam!
How each pale shade affrighted flies The living lightning of thy frown; While thou, erect, lookest sternly down, Contempt fierce flashing from thine eyes! Even there thy kingly pride will wield The sceptre of that shadowy field, Nor to its grim-browed monarch yield Homage or sacrifice!
Why this is well: the quickening blood Thrills warmer through each swelling vein, To think that genius thus should reign, Even on the shore of that dark flood Those countless hovering shadows bow Before the splendour of his brow; And recreant millions grovel now Where but so late they stood.
The gloom hath gone that hung before, Impenetrably dark around; And in eternal midnight bound The lightless Stygian shore: Where hath it fled? for now behold! Above, beneath, around him rolled, Clouds upon clouds, like burning gold, Their sunny radiance pour!
And a faint dawning smile appears, 'Mid the deep paleness of his cheek; All cheerless, lustreless, and weak— As struggling through a shroud of tears; It brightens, and his eye grows red, As through the silence of the dead, With iron tramp, a well-known tread And well known sigh he hears.
'Tis his own comrade; wild and deep Is the sad gloom that shades his brow; And see — another passes now, The turbanned Alp hath broke from sleep! Mazepha too, and Cain, are there, And Manfred, mystic lord of air; And see that maid, with streaming hair, O'er headless Ugo weep.
Another, yet another — lo, Sardanapalus, crowned with flowers, And fairer than the rosy hours— Ionian Myrrha hides her wo— And dark-browed Harold joins the train With smile that ill conceals his pain. Oh! when will such another strain Of mingled sweetness flow!
But list! another step draws nigh— The last but not the least is here— See smiling Juan's shade appear, With youth and joy in his bright eye; The soil and erring Julia, too, Wilt, shrinking blush stands forth to view— And young Haidee, too fair, too true, Heaves her soul-piercing sigh!
The imperial bride, Gulbeyaz, frowns, Constrained the ignoble crowd to join— And Leila, from th' embattled line, Her loved preserver smiling owns:— And here they stand — and here, beside Their lord; his varying cheek now dyed In crimson — now all cold in pride— And now, subdued, he groans:
Heard ye that groan? It was not loud Nor shrill, but would have pierced the ear Of death upon the charnel bier, Waking the corse within its shroud! 'Twas horrible! — so deadly deep, The startled bearer could not weep— It seemed through the hot brain to sweep Like to some blasting cloud!
It was but one; that giant heart Disdains the vulgar show of grief— Nor even a moment's short relief Would a world's sympathy impart. 'Tis silent: and the veil again Of horrid darkness shrouds the glen— But deeper o'er the sons of men Descends, when such as he depart!
