And laying down more than my life, her weight;
Scarce kissed her pallid hands, then moved with great
Reluctance, bodeful, from her placid state;
   But, ere my slow feet reached the door,
   Turned and caught one last look more,

And awe-struck stood to see portentous loom
From her large eyes full gazing through the gloom
Love darkly wedded to eternal doom,
   As she were gazing from the dead: 
   Falling at her feet I said,

“Bless me, dear Love, bless me before I go;
With love divine a beam of comfort throw,
For guidance and support, that I through woe
   Be raised and purified in grace
   Worthy to behold your face.”

She bowed her head in stately tenderness
Low whispering as her hands my brow did press,
“I pray that He will your lone spirit bless,
   And if to leave you be my fate,
   Pray you for me while I wait.”

A useless pang in her no more to wake,
I forced myself away, nor dared to take
Another look for her beloved sake;
   My face had told of the distressed
   Swollen heart labouring in my breast.

When in the outer air, I felt as one
Fresh startled from a dream, wherein the sun
Had dying left the earth a dingy, dun
   Annihilation.  The nightjar
   Only thrilled the air afar: 

No other sound was there:  a muffled breeze
Crept in the shrubs, and shuddered up the trees,
Then sought the ghost-white vapour of the leas,
   Where one long sheet of dismal cloud
   Swathed the distance in a shroud.

A solitary eye of cold stern light
Stared threateningly beyond the Western height,
Wrapped in the closing shadows of the night;
   And all the peaceful earth had slept
   But that eye stern vigil kept.

I wandered wearily I knew not where;
Up windy downs far-stretching, bleak and bare;
Through swamps that soddened under stagnant air;
   In blackest woods and brambled mesh,
   Thorny bushes tore my flesh: 

Amid the ripening corn I heard it sigh,
Hollow and sad, as night crawled sluggishly: 
Hollow and sadly sighed the corn while I
   Moved darkly in the midst, a blight
   Darkening more the hateful night.

My soul its hoarded secrets emptied on
The vaulted gloom of night:  old fancies shone,
And consecrated ancient hopes long gone;
   Old hopes that long had ceased to burn,
   Gone, and never to return.

No starlight pierced the dense vault over head,
And all I loved was passing or had fled: 
So on I wandered where the pathway led;
   And wandered till my own abode
   Spectral pale rose from the road.

What time I gained my home I saw the morn
Made dimly on the sullen East.  Wayworn
I went into the echoing house forlorn,
   Heartsick and weary sought my room,
   Better had it been my tomb.

I lay, and ever as my lids would close
In dull forgetfulness to slumberous doze,
Lone sounds of phantom tolling scared repose;
   Till wearied nature, sore oppressed,
   Slowly sank and dropped to rest.