The Two Spirits. An Allegory

Wouldst float above the earth, beware!

A Shadow tracks thy flight of fire—

                        Night is coming!

      Bright are the regions of the air,

And among the winds and beams

      It were delight to wander there—

                        Night is coming!

Second Spirit.

If I would cross the shade of night,

Within my heart is the lamp of love,

                        And that is day!

      And the moon will smile with gentle light

On my golden plumes where'er they move;

      The meteors will linger round my flight,

                        And make night day.

First Spirit.

Hail, and lightning, and stormy rain;

See, the bounds of the air are shaken—

                        Night is coming!

            The red swift clouds of the hurricane

      Yon declining sun have overtaken,

            The clash of the hail sweeps over the plain—

                        Night is coming!

Second Spirit.

I'll sail on the flood of the tempest dark.

With the calm within and the lignt around

                        Which makes night day:

      And thou, when the gloom is deep and stark,

Look from thy dull earth, slumber-hound,

      My moon-like flight thou then mayst mark

                        On high, far away.

Where one vast pine is frozen to ruin

O'er piles of snow and chasms of ice

                        Mid Alpine mountains;

      And that the languid storm pursuing

That winged shape, for ever flies

      Round those hoar branches, aye renewing

                        Its aëry fountains.

Some say when nights are dry and clear,

      And the death-dews sleep on the morass,

Sweet whispers are heard by the traveller,

                        Which make night day:

      And a silver shape like his early love doth pass

Upborne by her wild and glittering hair,

      And when he awakes on the fragrant grass,

                        He finds night day.