  Come, draw more near! Clasp hands with me! Ah close, and closer still! The night spreads to infinity! And through my heart a sudden chill, —I pray loose not your loving hold!— A fear, a loneliness untold Smites sharply, till mine eyes o’erfill! Nor have I strength nor stress of will To set my spirit free. The cold, the darkness, and the dread Immensity of space, The great, wan moon, whose ghostly face For ages has been dead, The weird lights wheeling overhead, The unknown worlds that onward roll, In endless wanderings ever led, That find no goal, The spectral mists that overspread With pallid light the lesser stars, The lurid glow that glimmers red Across the front of Mars, —O dearest heart, when all is said, I am afraid! and from the whole Wide waste of worlds I hide my sight, And from the boundless night! Their silent depths from pole to pole, The void, the vastness terrifies! —O, let me rather search your eyes, And with your sweet, warm touch disperse This terror of the universe That strikes into my soul!
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