The fireflies o'er the meadow In pulses come and go ; And faintly from the distance The dreaming cock doth crow. All things look strange and mystic, The very bushes swell And take wild shapes and motions, As if beneath a spell,— They seem not the same lilacs From childhood known so well. The snow of deepest silence So beautiful and quiet, And yet so like a pall,As if all life were ended, And rest were come to all. O, wild and wondrous midnight, There is a might in thee To make the charmed body Almost like spirit be, And give it some faint glimpses 1842. A PRAYER. GOD! do not let my loved-one die, That I am grown in purity Enough to enter thy pure clime, Then take me, I will gladly go, So that my love remain below! O, let her stay! She is by birth What I through death must learn to be, We need her more on our poor earth, Than thou canst need in heaven with thee: She hath her wings already, I Must burst this earth-shell ere I fly. 1841. Then, God, take me! We shall be near, More near than ever, each to each : Her angel ears will find more clear My heavenly than my earthly speech; And still, as I draw near to thee, Her soul and mine shall closer be. FANTASY. ROUND and round me she waved swinging, Like a wreath of smoke, In a clear, low gurgle singing What may ne'er be spoke ; Her white arms floated on the air, Like swans upon a stream, So stately fair, beyond compare, And I knew, by the splendour of her hair, That all must be a dream; For round her limbs it went and came, Hither and thither, I knew not whither, Fitfully like a wind-waved flame,— |