Page:Astrophel and other poems (IA astrophelotherpo00swiniala).pdf/31

 But the silence trembles with passion of sound suppressed, And the twilight quivers and yearns to the sunward, wrung With love as with pain; and the wide wood's motionless breast Is thrilled with a dumb desire that would fain find tongue And palpitates, tongueless as she whom a man-snake stung, Whose heart now heaves in the nightingale, never at rest Nor satiated ever with song till her last be sung.

Is it rapture or terror that circles me round, and invades Each vein of my life with hope--if it be not fear? Each pulse that awakens my blood into rapture fades, Each pulse that subsides into dread of a strange thing near Requickens with sense of a terror less dread than dear.