Xxi

So it ends--the path that crept Through a land all slumber-whist; Where the faded moonlight slept Like a pale antagonist. Now the star that led me onward,-- Reassuring with its light,-- Fails and falters; dipping downward Leaves me wandering in night, With old doubts, like hounds unchained, Baying at my back, in flight.... So it ends. The woods attained-- Where our hearts' Desire builded A fair temple, fire-gilded, With Hope's marble shrine within, (Where the lineaments of our love Shone, with lilies clad and crowned, Under marble reared above Sorrow and her sister, Sin, Columned, wreathed and ribbon-wound,)-- In the forest I have found But a ruin! All around Lie the shattered capitals, And vast fragments of the walls ... Like a climbing cloud,--that plies, Wind-wrecked, o'er the moon that lies 'Neath its blackness,--taking on Gradual certainties of wan, Soft assaults of easy white, (Till its huge cocoon, that holds Like a moth the moon, unfolds, And it passes) and the skies' Emptiness and hungry night Claim its bulk again, while she Rides in lonely purity:-- So I found our temple broken; And a musing moment's space Love, whose latest word was spoken, Seemed to meet me face to face, Making bright that ruined place With a white effulgence--then Passed, and all was dark again.