HYPOTHESES HYPOCHONDRIACÆ 1
And should she die, her grave should be
Upon the bare top of a sunny hill,
Among the moorlands of her own fair land,
Amid a ring of old and moss-grown stones
In gorse and heather all embosomed.
There should be no tall stone, no marble tomb
Above her gentle corse;the ponderous pile
Would press too rudely on those fairy limbs.
The turf should lightly he, that marked her home.
A sacred spot it would beevery bird
That came to watch her lone grave should be holy.
The deer should browse around her undisturbed;
The whin bird by, her lonely nest should build
All fearless; for in life she loved to see
Happiness in all things
And we would come on summer days
When all around was bright, and set us down
And think of all that lay beneath that turf
On which the heedless moor-bird sits, and whistles
His long, shrill, painful song, as though he plained
For her that loved him and his pleasant hills;
And we would dream again of bygone days
Until our eyes should swell with natural tears
For brilliant hopesall faded into air!
As, on the sands of Irak, near approach
Destroys the travellers vision of still lakes,
And goodly streams reed-clad, and meadows green;
And leaves behind the drear reality
Of shadeless, same, yet ever-changing sand!
And when the sullen clouds rose thick on high
Mountains on mountains rollingand dark mist
Wrapped itself round the hill-tops like a shroud,
When on her grave swept by the moaning wind
Bending the heather-bellsthen would I come
And watch by her, in silent loneliness,
And smile upon the stormas knowing well
The lightnings flash would surely turn aside,
Nor mar the lowly mound, where peaceful sleeps
All that gave life and love to one fond heart!
I talk of things that are not; and if prayers
By night and day availed from my weak lips,
Then should they never be! till I was gone,
Before the friends I loved, to my long home.
Oh pardon me, if eer I say too much; my mind
Too often strangely turns to ribald mirth,
As though I had no doubt nor hope beyond
Or brooding melancholy cloys my soul
With thoughts of days misspent, of wasted time
And bitter feelings swallowed up in jests.
Then strange and fearful thoughts flit oer my brain
By indistinctness made more terrible,
And incubi mock at me with fierce eyes
Upon my couch: and visions, crude and dire,
Of planets, suns, millions of miles, infinity,
Space, time, thought, being, blank nonentity,
Things incorporeal, fancies of the brain,
Seen, heard, as though they were material,
All mixed in sickening mazes, trouble me,
And lead my soul away from earth and heaven
Until I doubt whether I be or not!
And then I see all frightful shapeslank ghosts,
Hydras, chimeras, krakens, wastes of sand,
Herbless and void of living voicetall mountains
Cleaving the skies with height immeasurable,
On which perchance I climb for infinite years; broad seas,
Studded with islands numberless, that stretch
Beyond the regions of the sun, and fade
Away in distance vast, or dreary clouds,
Cold, dark, and watery, where wander I for ever!
Or space of ether, where I hang for aye!
A speck, an atominconsumable
Immortal, hopeless, voiceless, powerless!
And oft I fancy, I am weak and old,
And all who loved me, one by one, are dead,
And I am left aloneand cannot die!
Surely there is no rest on earth for souls
Whose dreams are like a madmans! I am young
And much is yet before meafter years
May bring peace with them to my weary heart!
TREHILL WELL
There stood a low and ivied roof,
As gazing rustics tell,
In times of chivalry and song
Yclept the holy well.
Above the ivies branchlets gray
In glistening clusters shone;
While round the base the grass-blades bright
And spiry foxglove sprung.
The brambles clung in graceful bands,
Chequering the old gray stone
With shining leaflets, whose bright face
In autumns tinting shone.
Around the fountains eastern base
A babbling brooklet sped,
With sleepy murmur purling soft
Adown its gravelly bed.
Within the cell the filmy ferns
To woo the clear wave bent;
And cushioned mosses to the stone
Their quaint embroidery lent.
The fountains face lay still as glass
Save where the streamlet free
Across the basins gnarled lip
Flowed ever silently.
Above the well a little nook
Once held, as rustics tell,
All garland-decked, an image of
The Lady of the Well.
They tell of tales of mystery,
Of darkling deeds of woe;
But no! such doings might not brook
The holy streamlets flow.
Oh tell me not of bitter thoughts,
Of melancholy dreams,
By that fair fount whose sunny wall
Basks in the western beams.
When last I saw that little stream,
A form of light there stood,
That seemed like a precious gem,
Beneath that archway rude:
And as I gazed with love and awe
Upon that sylph-like thing,
Methought that airy form must be
The fairy of the spring.