In the Midnight heaven's burning  
                  Through the ethereal deeps afar          
                  Once I watch'd with restless yearning    
                  An alluring aureate star;                
                  Ev'ry eve aloft returning                
                  Gleaming nigh the Arctic Car.            
                                                          
                  Mystic waves of beauty blended            
                  With the gorgeous golden rays            
                  Phantasies of bliss descended            
                  In a myrrh'd Elysian haze.                
                  In the lyre-born chords extended          
                  Harmonies of Lydian lays.                
                                                          
                  And (thought I) lies scenes of pleasure,  
                  Where the free and blessed dwell,        
                  And each moment bears a treasure,        
                  Freighted with the lotos-spell,          
                  And there floats a liquid measure        
                  From the lute of Israfel.                
                                                          
                  There (I told myself) were shining        
                  Worlds of happiness unknown,              
                  Peace and Innocence entwining            
                  By the Crowned Virtue's throne;          
                  Men of light, their thoughts refining    
                  Purer, fairer, than my own.              
                                                          
                  Thus I mus'd when o'er the vision        
                  Crept a red delirious change;            
                  Hope dissolving to derision,              
                  Beauty to distortion strange;            
                  Hymnic chords in weird collision,        
                  Spectral sights in endless range….      
                  Crimson burn'd the star of madness        
                  As behind the beams I peer'd;            
                  All was woe that seem'd but gladness      
                  Ere my gaze with Truth was sear'd;        
                  Cacodaemons, mir'd with madness,          
                  Through the fever'd flick'ring leer'd….
                  Now I know the fiendish fable            
                  The the golden glitter bore;              
                  Now I shun the spangled sable            
                  That I watch'd and lov'd before;          
                  But the horror, set and stable,          
                  Haunts my soul forevermore!