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a livid flare Through shrouding mist; and all things there Moved like grim shades in hell. The hammer's clamp on resonant steel; The siren's shriek; the scream and whirr Reverberant from forge and wheel; The fury and the clangorous stir And plunge of traffic; Vulcan's heel Crashing on iron,--and the reel Of sense at loss of _her_.-- None guessed when, playfully, she said, With smile that brightened toward her dead, "To-day across the world I ride To meet a bridegroom, I the bride." They thought her mischief lied. Around us was the deafening roar, A void, a wild and drear eclipse. A sadder sweetness than before Shook her pale, smiling lips; She waved adieu through vapours hoar, And vanished in the shadows frore Among the heedless ships ... In that dread lapse of all farewell The spirit, listening, plain could tell That devils laughed in drifting hell With guile upon their lips ... The world seemed all a hollow ghost That would dissolve away; And life itself a random boast Of elements at play; And time a swift elusive gleam, And man the mockery of a dream, A foam-bell to a moment's beam Flung from the spray. I had worshipped her with sacred sighs, Loved with the love that wondereth; My life had found her maiden-wise, And sweeter than the rose's breath; Lit by a soul in paradise The lights within her holy eyes, The lady loved of death ... Bereft, forlorn, by passion driven, And blanched with loss, by suffering riven, With impious heart I fled from Heaven ... Thought like a frost gripped all the brain: With frozen tears opprest, The conscious blood with sullen pain Lunged at the callous breast, Where hope and love, a pallid twain, Sat with a ghoul for guest. Over the watery wastes I fled Where'er dim desolation led Beneath sad sun and moon! For faith was dead, and joy was dead, And love was where the phantoms tread, And bitterness was passion's bread: "Grant, jester Death," I, laughing, said, "Thy haggard fool a boon!" ... And unforgiving, unforgiven, A derelict, by tempest driven, I drave beneath the breadth of heaven ... Grim sorrow fell on all things fair; To dust was turned the lover's breath
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