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| REGENT of song! who bringest to our shore | |
| Strains from the passionate land, where shapes of art | |
| Make music of the wind that passes o’er, | |
| Thou even here hast found the human heart; | |
| And in a thousand hearts thy songs repeat | 5 |
| Their echoes, like remembered poesy sweet, | |
| Witching the soul to warble evermore. | |
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| First seen, it seemed as if thy sweetest strain | |
| Had taken shape, and stood before our sight; | |
| Thy aspect filled the silence with sweet pain | 10 |
| That made it long for death. O creature bright! | |
| Or ere the trembling silence had ta’en flight | |
| We listened to thy looks, in hushed delight, | |
| And from thy motions sought a sound to gain. | |
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| Then on all hearts at once did pour a flood | 15 |
| Of golden sound, in many an eddying tone, | |
| As pours the wind into a breathless wood, | |
| Awakening in it music not its own; | |
| Thy voice controlled all spirits to one mood, | |
| Before all eyes one breathing image stood | 20 |
| Beheld, as if to thee all eyes had grown. | |
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| Yet did I seem to be with thee alone, | |
| With thee to stand upon enchanted ground, | |
| And gazed on thee, as if the sculptured stone | |
| Should live before me, (so thy magic bound | 25 |
| My soul, bewildered) while a cloud of sound, | |
| Rising in wreaths, upon the air around | |
| Lingered like incense from a censer thrown. | |
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