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