fairest throne doth see Though the roses of the morn Weave the veil by beauty worn—    Aye, beneath that broidered curtain, Stands the Archer stern and certain! Maid—thy Visionary hear—    Trust the wild one as the sear, When he tells thee that thine eye, While it beckons to the wooer, Only lureth yet more nigh Death, the dark undoer! Every ray shed from thy beauty Wastes the life-lamp while it beams, And the pulse's playful duty, And the blue veins' merry streams, Sport and run into the pall—    Creatures of the Tyrant, all! As the wind the rainbow shatters, Death thy bright smiles rends and scatters, Smile and rainbow leave no traces;—    From the spring-time's laughing graces, From all life, as from its germ, Grows the revel of the worm! Woe, I see the wild wind wreak Its wrath upon thy rosy bloom, Winter plough thy rounded cheek, Cloud and darkness close in gloom; Blackening over, and forever, Youth's serene and silver river! Love alike and beauty o'er, Lovely and beloved no more! Maiden, an oak that soars on high, And scorns the whirlwind's breath Behold thy Poet's youth defy The blunted dart of Death! His gaze as ardent as the light That shoots athwart the heaven, His soul yet fiercer than the light In the eternal heaven, Of Him, in whom as in an ocean-surge    Creation ebbs and flows—and worlds arise and merge! Through Nature steers the poet's thought to find No fear but this—one barrier to the mind? And dost thou glory so to think? And heaves thy bosom?—Woe! This cup, which lures him to the brink, As if divinity to drink—     Has poison in its flow! Wretched, oh, wretched, they who trust To strike the God-spark from the dust! The mightiest tone the music knows, But breaks the harp-string with the sound; And genius, still the more it glows, But wastes the lamp whose life bestows The light it sheds around. Soon from existence dragged away, The watchful jailer grasps his prey:    Vowed on the altar of the abused fire, The spirits I raised against myself conspire! Let—yes, I feel it two short springs away Pass on their rapid flight; And life's faint spark shall, fleeting from the clay, Merge in the Fount of Light! And weep'st thou, Laura?—be thy tears forbid; Would'st thou my lot, life's dreariest years amid, Protract and doom?—No: sinner, dry thy tears:    Would'st thou, whose eyes beheld the eagle wing Of my bold youth through air's dominion spring, Mark my sad age (life's tale of glory done)—    Crawl on the sod and tremble in the sun? Hear the dull frozen heart condemn the flame That as from heaven to youth's blithe bosom came; And see the 

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