HOW solemnly on mournful eyes
The mystic warning rose,
While o'er the Singer's forehead lies
A twilight of repose.
The twilight deepens into night,--
That night of frozen breath,
The rigor of whose Arctic blight,
We recognize as--death!
But since beyond the polar ice
May shine bright baths of balm;
Past its grim barriers' last device,
A crystal-hearted calm,--
Thus, ice-bound Death that guards so well
His far-off, secret goal,
May clasp a peace ineffable,
For some who reach his pole!
My poet--is it thus with thee,
Beyond this twilight gray,--
This frozen blight, this sombre sea,--
Ah! hast thou found the Day?
