My soul its hoarded secrets emptied on
The vaulted gloom of night: old fancies shone,
And consecrated ancient hopes long gone;
Old hopes that long had ceased to burn,
Gone, and never to return.

No starlight pierced the dense vault over head,
And all I loved was passing or had fled:
So on I wandered where the pathway led;
And wandered till my own abode
Spectral pale rose from the road.

What time I gained my home I saw the morn
Made dimly on the sullen East. Wayworn
I went into the echoing house forlorn,
Heartsick and weary sought my room,
Better had it been my tomb.

I lay, and ever as my lids would close
In dull forgetfulness to slumberous doze,
Lone sounds of phantom tolling scared repose;
Till wearied nature, sore oppressed,
Slowly sank and dropped to rest.


X. WILL-O'-THE-WISP.


"Gone the sickness, fled the pain,