Brooding o'er a sorrow hidden
In a heart-cell, which, unbidden,
Human eye may ne'er discover—
Human love may not console;
Sadly and in silence mourning
Fate which nothing can control.
Like a disembodied spirit,
The wan moon was hovering near it,
With a face all dim and pallid,
Just above the banner's height;
While it kept its murmuring motion,
Like a wave upon the ocean,
Or a sigh within a bosom
Struggling back from human sight;
Heedless of the spirit shedding
Round it her caressing light.
Long I gazed, almost forgetting
My own grieving and regretting,
On that dark, mysterious banner,
Floating on the midnight wind;
And I borrowed from its seeming
Thoughts in that strange hour of dreaming,
That have left undying tokens
Of themselves upon my mind;
And my spirit gathered from them
Knowledge holy and refined.
All the wildness of my madness
Altered to a calmer sadness—
Under that dim banner marshaled,
Memory viewed her countless host;
And my soul looked on confessing,
With a murmured prayer and blessing,
Each endearing reminiscence
In the tide of passion lost;
And a thrill of hope and gladness
My tumultuous bosom crossed.
