AMID the loveliest of all lonely vales,
Couched in soft silences of mountain calm,
And broadly shadowed both by pine and palm,
O'er which a tremulous golden vapor sails
Forever, though unbreathed on by a breeze
Or any wind of heaven, serenely sleeps
A lucid fountain, from whose fathomless deeps
Come murmurs stranger than the twilight sea's.
That golden vapor, buoyed without a breath,
Tints to its own fair bloom the limpid tide,
Through which erewhile the solemn vision rose
Of a calm face, benignly glorified
By all we dream or yearn for of pure rest,
Profound, Lethéan, passionless repose.
Still through the silence mystic murmurs sighed,
Fraught with far meanings, vague and unexpressed,
Till at the last, upbreathing, weird and near,
The voice of that pale phantom thrilled mine ear--
"Behold the face, the marvellous face, of Death!"
