clarion blending with the roll of stormy drum!

IV.

I remember, I remember, in my vigils cold and lone,
Brilliant reveries, burning fantasies, forever fled and gone!
Stately visions passed before me in the mystic realms of Mind,
Shapes of glory lightly wafted on the balmy summer wind;
Forms of pale and pensive loveliness, with eyes like pensile stars,
Such as never yet were beaming 'mid this world's discordant jars.
And their whispers wild, unearthly, unutterable, fell
like a harp-string's dying echo, or a fair young spirit's knell,
On my soul amid the shadows of my native forest trees,
Rustling melancholy, lowly, in the wailing of the breeze,
Till, unknowing pain or agony, I've wept such blissful tears
As shall never, never flow again 'mid darker later years!

V.

I am dreaming, I am dreaming of the bright ones that are gone,
The gifted and the beautiful, from Time's sad wasting flown,
Of those beings pure and gentle, like the passing glow of even,
Sent to teach us of a better, higher heritage in Heaven!
Sweet they were as first wild flowers that herald coming spring,
Or a mellow gleam of sunset through the storm-cloud's raven wing.
Fragile as that opening flower, fleeting as that golden ray,
Like the snow-wreath of the morning, full soon they fled away!
And fit it is it should be so; their mission here was brief
'Mid the blighting and the bitterness of Earth's unquiet grief;
So their hands were meekly folded, and closed their dreamful eyes,
And they passed in stainless innocence to dwell beyond the skies!

VI.

I am dreaming, I am dreaming of the lordly minds of old,
Whose 'winged-words' of power had once like glorious music rolled;
Lofty intellects that kindled as a far-off beacon flame,
Sending down the stream of ages the light of deathless fame;
Bursting through the rusty shackles of dark and spectral fears,
Leaving Freedom as a legacy to men of coming years.
And I've read in hoary records solemn story of the dead,
The mighty, the immortal, with their souls' vast treasures fled.
The piercing eyes of Genius, lit with unearthly fire,
Seemed to thrill me as I listened to his wild and burning lyre;
And their spell was on my spirit in the starry cope above,
In the gush of morning sunlight, and the fervent glance of love.

VII.

I am lonely, I am lonely! In the palace of my soul,
As I walk its lofty corridors, I rea