The Sleeper

19Oh, lady bright! can it be right —

20This window open to the night!

21The wanton airs, from the tree-top,

22Laughingly through the lattice-drop —

23The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,

24Flit through thy chamber in and out,

25And wave the curtain canopy

26So fitfully — so fearfully —

27Above the closed and fringed lid

28'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid,

29That, o'er the floor and down the wall,

30Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!

31Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?

32Why and what art thou dreaming here?

33Sure thou art come o'er far-off seas,

34A wonder to these garden trees!

35Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!

36Strange, above all, thy length of tress,

37And this all-solemn silentness!

38The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep

39Which is enduring, so be deep!

40Heaven have her in its sacred keep!

41This chamber changed for one more holy,

42This bed for one more melancholy,

43I pray to God that she may lie

44For ever with unopened eye,

45While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!

46My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,

47As it is lasting, so be deep;

48Soft may the worms about her creep!

49Far in the forest, dim and old,

50For her may some tall vault unfold —

51Some vault that oft hath flung its black

52And winged panels fluttering back,

53Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,

54Of her grand family funerals —

55Some sepulchre, remote, alone,

56Against whose portal she hath thrown,

57In childhood many an idle stone —

58Some tomb from out whose sounding door

59She ne'er shall force an echo more,

60Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!

61It was the dead who groaned within.