Watch you eastward, watch you west,

Till, in snares of fancy caught,
Mystically changed ye seem,
And the bird becomes a thought,
And the thought becomes a dream,
And the dream, outspread on high,
Lords it o'er the abject sky.

Surely I have known before
Phantoms of the shapes ye be--
Haunters of another shore
'Leaguered by another sea.
There my wanderings night and morn
Reconcile me to the bourn.

There the bird of happy wings
Wafts the ocean-news I crave;
Rumours of an isle he brings
Gemlike on the golden wave:
But the baleful beak and plume
Scatter immelodious gloom.

Though the flow'rs be faultless made,
Perfectly to live and die--
Though the bright clouds bloom and fade
Flow'rlike 'midst a meadowy sky--
Where this raven roams forlorn
Veins of midnight flaw the morn.