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Lechlade, Gloucestershire
THE WIND has swept from the wide atmosphere | |
| Each vapor 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, | 5 |
| Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen. | |
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| They breathe their spells toward the departing day, | |
| Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea; | |
| Light, sound, and motion own the potent sway, | |
| Responding to the charm with its own mystery. | 10 |
| The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass | |
| Knows not their gentle motions as they pass. | |
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| Thou too, aerial pile, whose pinnacles | |
| Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire, | |
| Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells, | 15 |
| Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire, | |
| Around whose lessening and invisible height | |
| Gather among the stars the clouds of night. | |
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| The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres; | |
| And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound, | 20 |
| Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs, | |
| Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around; | |
| And, mingling with the still night and mute sky, | |
| Its awful hush is felt inaudibly. | |
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| Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild | 25 |
| And terrorless as this serenest night; | |
| Here could I hope, like some inquiring child | |
| Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human sight | |
| Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep | |
| That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep. | 30 |
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