All Night Blues

The tumult has subsided The lights have died away And the stranger stands alone It is a day of days A day of all days either to live or die I am dying, yet shall I live This is indeed no dream Ill-fated and illustrious man Bewildered in the brilliancy Of thine own imagination And fallen in the flames Again I behold thee Once more thy form hath risen before me Not-oh! As thou art In the cold valley and shadow But as thou shouldst be There are surely other worlds than this I remember-- ah! How should I forget The deep midnight, the silent flight Of the raven-winged hours Thy visionary hours A wasting away of life The overflowings of Thine everlasting energies And now it was That we wrapped our spirits in dreaming And now it was That we wrapped our spirits In dreaming There was a dim mist over all the earth We were slowly drifting down Seeking in vain the treasure Which was to be found, alas Only within the abyss It was a happiness to wonder It was a happiness to dream And then-I felt a sable spirit Enkindling within me And then there fell A shadow on my soul Misery is manifold The wretchedness of the earth Is multiform Over-reaching the wide horizon As the rainbow Out of joy is sorrow born The memory of past bliss Is the anguish of today The poets ponder piningly Upon the ancient days Blissful days When blue rivers ran undammed Between hills unhewn Into far forest solitudes Primeval and unexplored A fateful stain of melancholy Is entwined in the perfection Of the beautiful Most fearfully, fearfully Dreams are no more In the place of hope Is the bitterness of despair With the heart of a fiend I cursed the days and the hours And the bitter moments Which seemed to lengthen and lengthen As your gentle life declined Like shadows In the dying of the day Ah Death, the spectre Which sits at all feasts So grew in my heart The dread of that evil hour Thus, in time it became Painful to love And thus, joy faded into horror And the most beautiful became The most hideous That grave wherein my brightest hope lies Stay for me there! I will not fail To meet thee in that hollow vale Yes! Tears are gathering in those eyes, and see "Thou hast conquered, " he cries out; "so let it be!" Him so essentially apart From all other human beings Beings like adders which writhe out From the eyes of grinning masks My spirit is writhing in fire, in delirium Flaring and flickering tongues Of emerald and violet fire Beams of unnatural glory In a thousand reflections Like cataracts of molten silver I yearn to hear the story Of your passing Through the dim regions In the dark Valley Of the river of Silence To dream has been the business of my life I have framed for myself, as you see A bower of dreams Awaking from the long day Into the very regions of fairyland Into a palace of imagination There is a remembrance of aerial forms Of sounds, musical yet sad A memory like a shadow I, ill of health and buried in gloom I, living within my own heart And addicted to painful regrets To muse for long hours To become absorbed in a shadow To lose myself, for an entire night In the embers of a fire To dream away whole days Over the perfume of a flower To lose all sense of earthly existence And the evening closes in upon me And then the darkness comes and goes And the day again dawns And mists of a second night are gathering around And still I sit motionless in my solitude And now it was That I wrapped my spirit in dreams Now it was that In twilight, I bethought of the days to come For one to whose exalted intellect There would be no more poison'd knowledge Wearied at heart with anxieties In dreamy delirium I succumbed to the fierce fever And the stars of my fate Faded from heaven And the earth grew dark And its figures pass'd by me like flitting shadows And then-- all was mystery and terror And now again all is void Dust has returned to dust The sense of Being Has utterly departed And in its stead there reigns Instead of any Thing Only a point in the vague infinity For he who is not For that which has no form For that which has no thought For that which is soulless For all this nothingness Yet for all this immortality The grave is still a home And the corrosive hours, companions