Imatges de pàgina
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Who painteth the shadows that are beneath The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb?

Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be

With the fears and the love for that which we see?

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HE wind has swept from the wide atmosphere

Each vapour that obscured the
sunset's ray;

And pallid evening twines its beaming hair
In duskier braids around the languid eyes of

day:

Silence and twilight, unbeloved of men,

Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.

They breathe their spells towards the depart

ing day,

Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea;

Light, sound, and motion own the potent

sway,

Responding to the charm with its own mystery. The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass

Knows not their gentle motions as they pass.

Thou too, aërial Pile! whose pinnacles
Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire,
Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells,
Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant
spire,

Around whose lessening and invisible height
Gather among the stars the clouds of night.

The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres:
And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling

sound

Half sense, half thought, among the darkness

stirs,

Breathed from their wormy beds all living

things around,

And mingling with the still night and r

sky

Its awful hush is felt inaudibly.

Thus solemnized and softened, death is mi
And terrorless as this serenest night:
Here could I hope, like some inquiring ch
Sporting on graves, that death did hide fi
human sight

Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep That loveliest dreams perpetual watch keep.

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H! there are spirits of the air,
And genii of the evening breeze,
And gentle ghosts, with eyes as

fair

As star-beams among twilight trees :Such lovely ministers to meet

Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.

With mountain winds, and babbling springs, And moonlight seas, that are the voice

Of these inexplicable things

Thou didst hold commune, and rejoice

When they did answer thee; but they
Cast, like a worthless boon, thy love away.

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