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Christopher Brennan - Interlude: The Casement
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Once, when the sun-burst flew 
 its banner above broad seas and eastern hills, 
 my casement knew 
 that morning in her wondrous isle of youth distils 
 perpetual balm, and tidings trumpeted 
 of Eden air 
 winsome and quick, round many a wilding grace, unwed, 
 clad only in glad hair, 
 bade fancy soar 
 far and aloft along that limitless ecstasy 
 of crystal, towards some shore 
 where life were crown`d amidst a halcyon sea. 
 Now — desolate, despairful (lamentable retreat! 
 wreck`d wheels and spars!), 
 streaming from irresistible defeat 
 the broken field of stars: 
 and all our hope they bore, the appointed word 
 and that unbroken song 
 that should resolve our suffering dark in peace, deferr`d 
 — how long? 

 The window is wide and lo! beyond its bars 
 dim fields of fading stars 
 and cavern tracts, whence the great store of tears 
 that Beauty all the years 
 hath wept in wanderings of the eyeless dark, 
 remembering the long cark 
 whereunder we, her care, are silent bow`d, 
 invades with numbing shroud 
 this dwindling realm of listless avatars. 
 Dim fields of fading stars, 
 and shall yet ye with amaranth rapture burn 
 and maiden grace return 
 sprung soft and sudden on the fainting night, 
 rose passioning to white; 
 or must our task remain and hopeless art 
 that sickeneth the heart 
 from yon dull embers to evoke the ghost 
 of the first garden lost, 
 sad necromancers we? Then let the blast, 
 that waked you ancient, cast 
 into the deeps your useless lagging dearth, 
 O blazon`d shame of Earth, 
 who then might hail the last oblivion, 
 knowing you doomward blown 
 before the advance of night`s relentless cars, 
 dim fields of fading stars!
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