Love's Apparition and Evanishment

AN ALLEGORIC ROMANCE

Like a lone Arab, old and blind, / Some caravan had left behind, / Who sits beside a ruin'd well, / Where the shy sand-asps bask and swell; / And now he hangs his aged head aslant, / And listens for a human sound -- in vain! / And now the aid, which Heaven alone can grant, / Upturns his eyeless face from Heaven to gain; -- / Even thus, in vacant mood, one sultry hour, / Resting my eye upon a drooping plant, / With brow low-bent, within my garden-bower, / I sate upon the couch of camomile; / And -- whether 'twas a transient sleep, perchance, / Flitted across the idle brain, the while / I watch'd the sickly calm with aimless scope, / In my own heart; or that, indeed a trance, / Turn'd my eye inward -- thee, O genial Hope, / Love's elder sister! thee did I behold, / Drest as a bridesmaid, but all pale and cold, / With roseless cheek, all pale and cold and dim, / Lie lifeless at my feet! / And then came Love, a sylph in bridal trim, / And stood beside my seat; / She bent, and kiss'd her sister's lips, / As she was wont to do; -- / Alas! 'twas but a chilling breath / Woke just enough of life in death / To make Hope die anew.