Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/298

 CONSOLATIONS OF SOLITUDE

Sometimes thou dost come sailing through the air, Borne on the black wings of thy bird, Despair.

Yet ever without din,

Unseen, thou enterest in,

Most like a noiseless breath,

When all is mute as death. And he who hears thy still small voice Reproaching can no more rejoice. Although he scours away in dread. Soft as the step of thief, thy tread His frightened fancy hears, and feels Closely pursuing at his heels ; Or, like one riding on his back, Thou'rt with him though he shifts his track, And thy upbraidings, whispered clear. Are ever ringing in his ear.

Like the continuous knell

Of never-ending bell. When old Night her watch doth keep. And the world is wrapped in sleep. Flitting the eye and ear between. Like a thing half heard, half seen, — Now real, now unreal, — in a dream Thou harpest on some dim-remembered theme Of evil, dead and buried long, Which thou wilt weave in solemn song. Recalling what we would remember not. Making most clear what was most long forgot,

And in the breast

Breed such unrest. As thrills the night when some great wave's commotion Sends its vast whispers from the heaving ocean.

��No evil doth so hidden lie

But thy keen sight can it descry,

�� �