Look ’round thee now on Samarkand!— Is not she queen of Earth? her pride Above all cities? in her hand Their destinies? in all beside Of glory which the world hath known Stands she not nobly and alone? Falling—her veriest stepping-stone Shall form the pedestal of a throne— And who her sovereign? Timour—he Whom the astonished people saw Striding o’er empires haughtily A diademed outlaw!
O, human love! thou spirit given, On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven! Which fall’st into the soul like rain Upon the Siroc-withered plain, And, failing in thy power to bless But leav’st the heart a wilderness! Idea! which bindest life around With music of so strange a sound And beauty of so wild a birth— Farewell! for I have won the Earth.
When Hope, the eagle that towered, could see No cliff beyond him in the sky, His pinions were bent droopingly— And homeward turned his softened eye. ’Twas sunset: when the sun will part There comes a sullenness of heart To him who still would look upon The glory of the summer sun. That soul will hate the ev’ning mist, So often lovely, and will list To the sound of the coming darkness (known To those whose spirits hearken) as one Who, in a dream of night, would fly, But can not , from a danger nigh.
What tho’ the moon—tho’ the white moon Shed all the splendor of her noon, Her smile is chilly—and her beam, In that time of dreariness, will seem (So like you gather in your breath) A portrait taken after death. And boyhood in a summer sun Whose waning is the dreariest one— For all we live to know is known, And all we seek to keep hath flown— Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall With the noonday beauty—which is all. I reached my home—my home no more— For all had flown who made it so. I passed from out its mossy door, And, tho’ my tread was soft and low, A voice came from the threshold stone Of one whom I had earlier known— O! I defy thee, Hell, to show On beds of fire that burn below, A humbler heart—a deeper woe.