"Life, then, is best!" he cried. "But life together and alone, life
where we count out its throbs in some far purple island of the main,
prolonged who knows how far?--love shall make for us perpetual youth,
there shall no gloom enter our Eden, perfect solitude and perfect bliss!
Alone, we two in our pride and our joy can defy the powers of any other
heaven, we shall become gods ourselves! Up helm and away! Life is best!"
THE NEVA.
I walk, as in a dream,
Beside the sweeping stream,
Wrapped in the summer midnight's amber haze:
Serene the temples stand,
And sleep, on either hand,
The palace-fronts along the granite quays.
Where golden domes, remote,
Above the sea-mist float,
The river-arms, dividing, hurry forth;
And Peter's fortress-spire,
A slender lance of fire,
Still sparkles back the splendor of the North.
The pillared angel soars
Above the silent shores;
Dark from his rock the horseman hangs in air;
And down the watery line
The exiled Sphinxes pine
For Karnak's morning in the mellow glare.
I hear, amid the hush,
The restless current's rush,
The Neva murmuring through his crystal zone:
A voice portentous, deep,
To charm a monarch's sleep
With dreams of power resistless as his own.
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