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| I HAD a vision of the night. It seem’d | |
| There was a long red track of barren land | |
| Block’d in by black hills, where a half-moon dream’d | |
| Of morn, and whiten’d. Drifts of sallow sand, | |
| This way and that, were heapt below; and flats | 5 |
| Of water;—glaring shallows, where strange bats | |
| Came and went, and moths flicker’d. To the right | |
| A dusty road, that crept along the waste | |
| Like a white snake; and further up I traced | |
| Turreted masses on a mason’d height. | 10 |
| A hundred casements all ablaze with light: | |
| And shades that slid athwart them as in haste: | |
| And a slow music, such as sometimes kings | |
| Command at mighty revels, softly sent | |
| From viol, and flute, and tabor, and the strings | 15 |
| Of many a sweet and slumbrous instrument, | |
| That wound into the mute heart of night | |
Out of that distance.
Then I could perceive | |
| A glory pouring through an open door, | |
| And in it five bright maidens. I believe | 20 |
| That all those maidens milk-white vesture wore, | |
| Or white it seem’d in the unstain’d embrace | |
| Of radiance flowing down a lucid floor | |
| Through glorious galleries, from an unseen place | |
| That glow’d far inward. Still as statues all | 25 |
| They stood: each face of them, upslanted keen, | |
| Of some great coming joy shone augural: | |
| And each husht maiden, with majestic mien, | |
| Held heavenward in her lifted hand a small | |
| Clear-sparkling lamp whose little resolute flame | 30 |
| Throbb’d fast but flinch’d not. From that place unseen | |
| There rose a shout ‘The Bridegroom!’ And one came | |
| Crown’d for a feast. I could not see the face | |
| That bent in welcome kingly and serene | |
| Above those maidens waiting its command; | 35 |
| So great a glory from that unseen place | |
Transcended sight.
He took them by the hand, | |
| And led them in. With light and music blent | |
| They faded from me. On their bridal band, | |
| And on the glory into which they went, | 40 |
| The great doors closed. Once more the desert land | |
| Lay dark and silent; for the moon had dipp’d | |
| Her reeling horn behind a battlement | |
| Of black wind-broken cloud. My dream was stripp’d | |
| And stricken bare. Deep sense of sudden loss | 45 |
| Fill’d all the night with silence and eclipse. | |
| Then in the dark came, fitfully across | |
| The creviced waste, a wail as from the lips | |
| Of lost bewilder’d wanderers. And again | |
| I had a vision on that midnight plain. | 50 |
| Five women. Young and beautiful they were: | |
| But theirs such beauty as but deepens all | |
| The desolation of things fashion’d fair | |
| And steadfast, when they prematurely fall | |
| In all their freshness, not beneath time’s slow | 55 |
| And softening touch, but in a shatter’d heap | |
| Of irremediable overthrow | |
| Suddenly thunder-smitten. Roused from sleep | |
| With a fierce start that into wandering trouble | |
| Over her else-unshelter’d shoulder threw | 60 |
| Her loosen’d tresses, one was bent half double, | |
| A huddled shape, that hung o’er the last spark | |
| Of a lamp slowly dying. As she blew | |
| The dull light redder, and about the dark | |
| The dry-wick, all in crumbling sparkles, flew, | 65 |
| I saw a light of horror in her eyes; | |
| A wild light on her flush’d cheek; a wild white | |
| On her dry lips; an agony of surprise | |
| Fearfully fair. The lamp dropp’d. From my sight | |
| She fell into the dark. Beside her sat | 70 |
| One without motion; and her stern face flat | |
| Against the dark sky. One as still as death, | |
| Hollow’d her hands about her lamp, for fear, | |
| Some motion of the midnight, or her breath, | |
| Should fan out the last flicker. Rosy-clear | 75 |
| The light oozed through her fingers, o’er her face: | |
| There was a ruin’d beauty hovering there | |
| Over deep pain, and, dash’t with lurid grace, | |
| A waning bloom. The light grew dim and blear; | |
| And she, too, slowly darken’d in her place. | 80 |
| Another, with both hands enwoven fast | |
| Together, clinging to her heapéd knees, | |
| Moan’d as she rock’d herself, until at last | |
| She neither moved nor moan’d. By faint degrees | |
| The moon, from her cloud chasm emerging, cast | 85 |
| (Cold as life’s last look from a dying eye) | |
| A momentary livid light o’er these | |
| Lost maidens. Then one rose up with a cry | |
| To that late gleam; and stretch’d a wrathful arm | |
| Of wild expostulation to the sky, | 90 |
| Shouting—“These earth-lamps fail us! And what harm? | |
| Doth not the moon shine? Yonder, o’er the waste, | |
| Methinks I hear, tho’ faint, the festal tone | |
| Of lutes and viols. Let us rise, and haste | |
| To meet the Bridegroom. It were better done, | 95 |
| At worst, to perish by the palace gate, | |
| And sink in sight of safety one by one, | |
| Than here upon the homeless wild to wait | |
| Uncertain ills. Away! the hour is late!” | |
| |
| Again all darken’d. I could see no more. | 100 |
| Not the least gleam of light did heaven afford. | |
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| At last I heard a knocking on a door, | |
| And some one crying “Open to us, Lord.” | |
| There was an awful pause. I heard my heart | |
| Beat. Then a voice—“I know you not. Depart!” | 105 |
| I caught, within, a glimpse of glory. And | |
The door closed.
Still in darkness dream’d the land. | |
| I could not see those women. Not a breath! | |
| Darkness and awe; a darkness deep as death. | |
| The darkness took them….. | 110 |
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