There is no parting there, no change, No death, no fading, no decay; No hand is cold, no voice is strange, No eye is dark--or turned away.
To us, who daily toil and weep, How welcome is Night's starry smile, When in the fairy barge of Sleep We visit the Enchanted Isle.
All holy hearts that worship Truth, Though bleak their daily pathway seems, Find treasure and immortal youth In that fair isle of happy dreams.
But, if the soul have dwelt with sin, It landeth on that isle no more, Though it would give its life to win One glimpse but of the pleasant shore.
Their joys, which have been thrown away, Or stained with guilt, can bloom no more, And o'er the night their vessels stray Where pale shades weep, and surges roar.
I had a vision in that solemn hour, Last of the year sublime, Whose wave sweeps downward, with its dying power Rippling the shores of Time! On the lone margin of that hoary sea My spirit stood alone, Watching the gleams of phantom History Which through the darkness shone:
Then, when the bell of midnight, ghostly hands Tolled for the dead year's doom, I saw the spirits of Earth's ancient lands Stand up amid the gloom! The crownéd deities, whose reign began In the forgotten Past, When first the glad world gave to sovereign Man Her empires green and vast!
First queenly ASIA, from the fallen thrones Of twice three thousand years, Came with the wo a grieving goddess owns Who longs for mortal tears: The dust of ruin to her mantle clung, And dimmed her crown of gold, While the majestic sorrows of her tongue From Tyre to Indus rolled:
"Mourn with me, sisters, in my realm of wo, Whose only glory streams From its lost childhood, like the artic glow Which sunless Winter dreams! In the red desert moulders Babylon, And the wild serpent's hiss Echoes in Petra's palaces of stone And waste Persepolis!
Gone are the deities who ruled enshrined In Elephanta's caves, And Brahma's wailings fill the odorous wind That stirs Amboyna's waves! The ancient gods amid their temples fall, And shapes of some near doom, Trembling and waving on the Future's wall, More fearful make my gloom!"
Then from her seat, amid the palms embowered That shade the Lion-land, Swart AFRICA in dusky aspect towered-- The fetters on her hand! Backward she saw, from out her drear eclipse, The mighty Theban years, And the deep anguish of her mournful lips Interpreted her tears.