“WOE! woe is me! the centuries pass away,
The mortal seasons run their ceaseless rounds,
While here I wither for the sunbright day,
Its genial sights and sounds.
Woe! woe is me!
“One summer night, in ages long agone,
I saw my woodland lover leave the brake;
I heard him plaining on the peaceful lawn
A plaint ‘for my sweet sake.’
Woe! Woe is me!
“My heart upsprang to answer that fond lay,
But suddenly the star-girt planets paled,
And high into the welkin’s glimmering gray
Majestic Dian sailed!
Woe! woe is me!
“She swept aloft, bold almost as the sun,
And wrathful red as fiery-crested Mars;
Ah! then I knew some fearful deed was done
On earth, or in the stars.
Woe! woe is me!
With ghastly face upraised, and shuddering throat,
I watched the omen with a prescient pain;
When, lightning-barbed, a beamy arrow smote,
Or seemed to smite, my brain.
Woe! woe is me!
“Oblivion clasped me, till I woke forlorn,
Fettered and sorrowing on this lonely bed,
Shut from the mirthful kisses of the morn–
Earth’s glories overhead.
Woe! woe is me!
“The south wind stirs the sedges into song,
The blossoming myrtles scent the enamored air;
But still, sore moaning for another’s wrong,
I pine in sadness here.
Woe! woe is me!
“Alas! alas! the weary centuries flee,
The waning seasons perish, dark or bright;
My grief alone, like some charmed poison-tree,
Knows not an autumn blight.
Woe! woe is me!”
The mournful sounds swooned off, but Echo rose,
And bore them up divinely to a close
Of rare mysterious sweetness; nevermore
Shall mortal winds to listening wood and shore
Waft such heart-melting music. “Where, oh! where,”
Avolio murmured–“to what haunted sphere–
Has fate at length my errant footsteps brought?”
Launched on a baffling sea of mystic thought,
His reason in a whirling chaos, lost
Compass and chart and headway, vaguely tossed
‘Mid shifting shapes of wing
(Paul Hamilton Hayne)
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Based on Topics: Night Poems, Mind Poems, Sadness Poems, Thought & Thinking Poems, Pain Poems, Music Poems, Brain Poems, Autumn PoemsBased on Keywords: upsprang, headway, poison-tree, murmured-, fiery-crested, heart-melting, star-girt