# Tamerlane and other poems (1884)/Fugitive pieces

A type facsimile edited by R H Shepherd (1884). For other versions see Tamerlane and other poems
FUGITIVE PIECES.
FUGITIVE PIECES.
TO — —
* VISIT OF THE DEAD.
* THY soul shall find itself alone—
* Alone of all on earth—unknown
* The cause—but none are near to pry
* Into thine hour of secrecy.
* Be silent in that solitude,
* Which is not loneliness—for then
* The spirits of the dead, who stood
* In life before thee, are again
* In death around thee, and their will
* Shall then o'ershadow thee—be still:
* For the night, tho' clear, shall frown;
* And the stars shall look not down
* From their thrones, in the dark heaven,
* With light like Hope to mortals given.
* But their red orbs, without beam,
* To thy withering heart shall seem
* As a burning, and a fever
* Which would cling to thee for ever. ​But 'twill leave thee, as each star
* In the morning light afar
* Will fly thee—and vanish:
* —But its thought thou canst not banish.
* The breath of God will be still;
* And the mist upon the hill
* By that summer breeze unbroken
* Shall charm thee—as a token,
* And a symbol which shall be
* Secrecy in thee.
* EVENING STAR.
* TWAS noontide of summer.
* And mid-time of night;
* And stars, in their orbits,
* Shone pale, thro' the light
* Of the brighter, cold moon,
* 'Mid planets her slaves,
* Herself in the Heavens,
* Her beam on the waves.
* I gazed awhile
* On her cold smile;
* Too cold—too cold for me—
* There pass'd, as a shroud,
* A fleecy cloud,
* And I turn'd away to thee.
* Proud Evening Star,
* In thy glory afar, ​And dearer thy beam shall be;
* For joy to my heart
* Is the proad part
* Thou bearest in heaven at night.
* And more I admire
* Thy distant fire,
* Than that colder, lowly light.
* IMITATION.
* A DARK unfathom'd tide
* Of interminable pride—
* A mystery, and a dream,
* Should my early life seem;
* I say that dream was fraught
* With a wild, and waking thought
* Of beings that have been,
* Which my spirit hath not seen,
* Had I let them pass me by,
* With a dreaming eye!
* Let none of earth inherit
* That vision on my spirit;
* Those thoughts I would control,
* As a spell upon his soul:
* For that bright hope at last
* And that light time have past.
* And my worldly rest hath gone
* With a sigh as it pass'd on:
* I care not tho' it perish
* With a thought I then did cherish.
* How often we forget all time, when lone
* Admiring Nature's universal throne;
* Her woods—her wilds—her mountains—the intense
* Reply of HERS to OUR intelligence!
* 1.
* IN youth have I known one with whom the Earth
* In secret communing held—as he with it.
* In daylight, and in beauty from his birth:
* Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit
* From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
* A passionate light—such for his spirit was fit—
* And yet that spirit knew not, in the hour
* Of its own fervour, what had o'er it power.
* 2.
* Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought
* To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o'er.
* But I will half believe that wild light fraught
* With more of sovereignty than ancient lore ​Hath ever told—or is it of a thought
* The unembodied essence, and no more,
* That with a quickening spell doth o'er us pass
* As dew of the night-time o'er the summer grass?
* 3.
* Doth o'er us pass, when, as th' expanding eye
* To the loved object—so the tear to the lid
* Will start, which lately slept in apathy?
* And yet it need not be—(that object) hid
* From us in life—but common—which doth lie
* Each hour before us—but then only, bid
* With a strange sound, as of a harp-string broken.
* To awake us—'Tis a symbol and a token
* 4.
* Of what in other worlds shall be—and given
* In beauty by our God, to those alone
* Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven
* Drawn by their heart's passion, and that tone,
* That high tone of the spirit which hath striven
* Tho' not with Faith—with godliness—whose throne
* With desperate energy 't hath beaten down;
* Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.
* ​A WILDER'D being from my birth,
* My spirit spurn'd control,
* But now, abroad on the wide earth.
* Where wanderest thou, my soul?
* In visions of the dark night
* I have dream'd of joy departed—
* But a waking dream of life and light
* Hath left me broken-hearted.
* And what is not a dream by day
* To him whose eyes are cast
* On things around him with a ray
* Turn'd back upon the past?
* That holy dream—that holy dream,
* While all the world were chiding,
* Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
* A lonely spirit guiding—
* What tho' that light, thro' misty night
* So dimly shone afar—
* "What could there be more purely bright
* In Truth's day-star?
* ​THE happiest day—the happiest hour
* My sear'd and blighted heart hath known,
* The highest hope of pride and power,
* I feel hath flown.
* Of power! said I? yes! such I ween;
* But they have vanished long, alas!
* The visions of my youth have been—
* But let them pass.
* And, pride, what have I now with thee?
* Another brow may even inherit
* The venom thou hast pour'd on me—
* Be still, my spirit.
* The happiest day—the happiest hour
* Mine eyes shall see—have ever seen,
* The brightest glance of pride and power,
* I feel—have been:
* ​But were that hope of pride and power
* Now offer'd, with the pain
* Even then I felt—that brightest hour
* I would not live again:
* For on its wing was dark alloy.
* And as it flutter'd—fell
* An essence—powerful to destroy
* A soul that knew it well.
* THE LAKE.
* IN youth's spring it was my lot
* To haunt of the wide earth a spot
* The which I could not love the less;
* So lovely was the loneliness
* Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
* And the tall pines that tower'd around.
* But when the night had thrown her pall
* Upon that spot—as upon all,
* And the wind would pass me by
* In its stilly melody,
* My infant spirit would awake
* To the terror of the lone lake.
* Yet that terror was not fright—
* But a tremulous delight,
* And a feeling undefined,
* Springing from a darken'd mind. ​Death was in that poison'd wave
* And in its gulf a fitting grave
* For him who thence could solace bring
* To his dark imagining;
* Whose wildering thought could even make
* An Eden of that dim lake.