| LIKE soundless summer lightning seen afar, | |
| A halo o’er the grave of all mankind, | |
| O undefinèd dream-embosomed star, | |
| O charm of human love and sorrow twined: | |
| |
| Far, far away beyond the world’s bright streams, | 5 |
| Over the ruined spaces of the lands, | |
| Thy beauty, floating slowly, ever seems | |
| To shine most glorious; then from out our hands | |
| |
| To fade and vanish, evermore to be | |
| Our sorrow, our sweet longing sadly borne, | 10 |
| Our incommunicable mystery | |
| Shrined in the soul’s long night before the morn. | |
| |
| Ah! in the far fled days, how fair the sun | |
| Fell sloping o’er the green flax by the Nile, | |
| Kissed the slow water’s breast, and glancing shone | 15 |
| Where laboured men and maidens, with a smile | |
| Cheating the laggard hours; o’er them the doves | |
| Sailed high in evening blue; the river-wheel | |
| Sang, and was still; and lamps of many loves | |
| Were lit in hearts, long dead to woe or weal. | 20 |
| |
| And, where a shady headland cleaves the light | |
| That like a silver swan floats o’er the deep | |
| Dark purple-stained Aegean, oft the height | |
| Felt from of old some poet-soul upleap, | |
| |
| As in the womb a child before its birth, | 25 |
| Foreboding higher life. Of old, as now, | |
| Smiling the calm sea slept, and woke with mirth | |
| To kiss the strand, and slept again below. | |
| |
| So, from of old, o’er Athens’ god-crowned steep | |
| Or round the shattered bases of great Rome, | 30 |
| Fleeting and passing, as in dreamful sleep, | |
| The shadow-peopled ages go and come: | |
| |
| Sounds of a far-awakened multitude, | |
| With cry of countless voices intertwined, | |
| Harsh strife and stormy roar of battle rude, | 35 |
| Labour and peaceful arts and growth of mind. | |
| |
| And yet, o’er all, the One through many seen, | |
| The phantom Presence moving without fail, | |
| Sweet sense of closelinked life and passion keen | |
| As of the grass waving before the gale. | 40 |
| |
| What art Thou, O that wast and art to be? | |
| Ye forms that once through shady forest-glade | |
| Or golden light-flood wandered lovingly, | |
| What are ye? Nay, though all the past do fade | |
| Ye are not therefore perished, ye whom erst | 45 |
| The eternal Spirit struck with quick desire, | |
| And led and beckoned onward till the first | |
| Slow spark of life became a flaming fire. | |
| |
| Ye are not therefore perished: for behold | |
| To-day ye move about us, and the same | 50 |
| Dark murmur of the past is forward rolled | |
| Another age, and grows with louder fame | |
| |
| Unto the morrow: newer ways are ours, | |
| New thoughts, new fancies, and we deem our lives | |
| New-fashioned in a mould of vaster powers; | 55 |
| But as of old with flesh the spirit strives, | |
| |
| And we but head the strife. Soon shall the song | |
| That rolls all down the ages blend its voice | |
| With our weak utterance and make us strong; | |
| That we, borne forward still, may still rejoice, | 60 |
| |
| Fronting the wave of change. Thou who alone | |
| Changeless remainest, O most mighty Soul, | |
| Hear us before we vanish! O make known | |
| Thyself in us, us in Thy living whole. | |
