Constancy to an Ideal Object

Since all that beat about in Nature's range,Or veer or vanish; why should'st thou remainThe only constant in a world of change,O yearning Thought! that liv'st but in the brain?Call to the Hours, that in the distance play,The faery people of the future day--Fond Thought! not one of all that shining swarmWill breathe on thee with life-enkindling breath,Till when, like strangers shelt'ring from a storm,Hope and Despair meet in the porch of Death!Yet still thou haunt'st me; and though well I see,She is not thou, and only thou art she,Still, still as though some dear embodied Good,Some living Love before my eyes there stoodWith answering look a ready ear to lend,I mourn to thee and say--"Ah! loveliest friend!That this the meed of all my toils might be,To have a home, an English home, and thee!"Vain repetition! Home and Thou are one.The peacefull'st cot, the moon shall shine upon,Lulled by the thrush and wakened by the lark,Without thee were but a becalmed bark,Whose helmsman on an ocean waste and wideSits mute and pale his mouldering helm beside.

And art thou nothing? Such thou art, as whenThe woodman winding westward up the glenAt wintry dawn, where o'er the sheep-track's mazeThe viewless snow-mist weaves a glist'ning haze,Sees full before him, gliding without tread,An image with a glory round its head;The enamoured rustic worships its fair hues,Nor knows he makes the shadow, he pursues!

A Lovely form there sate beside my bed,And such a feeding calm its presence shed,A tender love so pure from earthly leaven,That I unnethe the fancy might control,'Twas my own spirit newly come from heaven,Wooing its gentle way into my soul!But ah! the change--It had not stirr'd, and yet--Alas! that change how fain would I forget!That shrinking back, like one that had mistook!That weary, wandering, disavowing look!'Twas all another, feature, look, and frame,And still, methought, I knew, it was the same!

This riddling tale, to what does it belong?Is't history? vision? or an idle song?Or rather say at once, within what spaceOf time this wild disastrous change took place?

Call it a moment's work (and such it seems)This tale's a fragment from the life of dreams;But say, that years matur'd the silent strife,And 'tis a record from the dream of life.