Will dawn again, and, ne'er to fade away,
The fleeting moments endlessly exist.

The present lives, the past and future twine;
My life, my days forevermore endure.
My life--it comes I know not whence, but mine
For aye 'twill be, indissolubly sure.

* * * * *

When the night drew on, Atma went away. In thought Bertram followed him,
full of sad solicitude.

He strode along the heights. The cooling air and the sense of isolation
were grateful to his worn spirit. He wandered far until he found himself
in a rocky fortress, vast, black and terrible. The lowering peaks above
inclined their giant heads to one another in awful conclave, and the
ghastly moonbeams pierced to the gloom below, where they enwrapped the
lonely form of Atma in a phosphorescent glare. The winds broke among the
cliffs, and with shrieks and fearful laughter proclaimed the dark
councils of the peaks, and in the din were heard mutterings and
imprecations. A transport seized the soul of Atma. The horrible glee of
the night awoke wrath, and he hurled defiance to the mocking winds.

"What! are th' infernal powers moved for me,
That all the hosts of hell me welcome give,
And claim me comrade in their revelry?
Abhorrent things, I am not yours, I live,
I know I live because I think on death!
I live, dead things, to revel among tombs,
A ghoul, henceforth I feast on buried joys,
My soul the burial-place, where lie, beneath
A fearful night of cries and hellish spumes,
My lovely youth with jovial convoys,
Hopes, happy-eyed, and linked solaces,
And in the lapse of hateful years they will--
My guileless joys, my rose-hued memories--
Corrupt and rot and turn to venomed ill.

O cherished dreams of Truth! O sacred bond
Unlovely grown! O faith so mutable!
Shades of my fathers, not august but fond!
How hollow were the darlings of my dream!
But she, O Lotus-flower, my promised bride,
Star of my youth, my pure unspotted dove!
Again I see her in her gentle pride,
Her starry eyes meet mine with melting beam;
Unsightly grief approach not near my Love,
Flee from her presence, O thou gaunt Despair,
Good Time, embalm her daintily and fair,
Link her sweet fame with hymns and fragrancy.
And happy stars, and blissful utterance,
And with all transports that immortal b