Love's Anniversary.

Like a bold, adventurous swain,     Just a year ago to-day,     I launched my bark on a radiant main,     And Hymen led the way:     "Breakers ahead!" he cried,     As he sought to overwhelm     My daring craft in the shrieking tide,     But Love, like a pilot bold and tried,     Sat, watchful, at the helm.     And we passed the treacherous shoals,     Where many a hope lay dead,     And splendid wrecks were piled, like the ghouls     Of joys forever fled.     Once safely over these,     We sped by a fairy realm,     Across the bluest and calmest seas     That were ever kissed by a truant breeze,     With Love still at the helm.     We sailed by sweet, odorous isles,     Where the flowers and trees were one;     Through lakes that vied with the golden smiles     Of heaven's unclouded sun:     Still speeds our merry bark,     Threading life's peaceful realm,     And 'tis ever morn with our marriage-lark,     For the Pilot-Love of our safety-ark     Stands, watchful, at the helm.     II.     A beautiful land is the Land of Dreams,     Green hills and valleys, and deep lagoons,     Swift-rushing torrents and gentle streams,     Glassing a myriad silver moons;     Mirror-like lakelets with lovely isles,     And verdurous headlands looking down     On the Neread shapes, whose smiles     Were worth the price of a peaceful crown.     We clutch at the silvery bars     Flung from the motionless stars,             And climb far into space,             Defying the race     Who ride in arial cars.     We take up the harp of the mind,     And finger its delicate strings;             The notes, soft and light             As a moonbeam's flight,     Departing on viewless wings.     Afar in some fanciful bower,     Some region of exquisite calm,     Where the starlight falls in a gleaming shower,             We sink to repose             On our couch of rose,     Inhaling no mortal balm.     The worlds are no longer unknown,     We pass through the uttermost sky,             Our eyelids are kissed             By a gentle mist,             And we feel the tone             Of a calmer zone,     As if heaven were wondrous nigh.     A fanciful land is the Land of Dreams,     Where earth and heaven are clasping hands;             No heaven - no earth,             But one wide, new birth,     Where Beauty and Goodness, and human worth,     Make earth of heaven and heaven of earth;     And angels are walking on golden strands.     And the pearly gates of the universe     Of mind and fancy, opening     To the touch of the dainty finger-tips     Of elegant Peris with rose-bud lips,     Delicate, weird-like sounds are born     From the amber depths of odorous morn,     And spirits of beauty and light rehearse         Such strains as the young immortals sing,                 When the souls of the blest                 Are borne to their rest,     On luminous pinions of light serene     To the fragrant bowers of evergreen;     O'er the rosy plains, where the dying hours     Are changed by a spell to celestial flowers,     Where the skies have a hue no name can express,     For the tone of their passionate loveliness         Surpasseth all human imagining.     Such was their beautiful Dream of Life;             Each stern reality softened down;     Earth seemed to have ended her age of Strife,             And Harmony reigned, her olive crown     Besting on the Parian brow             Of the fair victor, like the gleam     Of the silvery moon on waves that flow             Thoughtfully down the summer stream.     Such was their earnest Dream of Life!     Was it some angel, with jealous eye,     Seeing such love beneath the sky     As never yet in world or star,     Or spheral height, that reached so far     'Twas never beheld by mortal sight,     Or elsewhere, save in highest heaven,     Was duly earned, or truly given,     That leagued with the usurper, Death,     To quench the light that shone so bright     That in all the earth there was not a breath     So foul as to change their day to night?     Alone! alone!    Oh, word of fearful tone!     Well might the moon withhold her light,     The stars withdraw from human sight,     When Love was overthrown.     The Minstrel's heart how changed!     Love's principalities,     O'er which he reigned supreme,     Usurped by earth's realities;     The realm through which he ranged     Become a vanished dream!     And yet he sung, as sings     The dying swan that droops its wings     And drifts along the stream: