A sound of silence on the startled ear
Which dreamy poets name “the music of the sphere.”
Ours is a world of words: Quiet we call
“Silence”— which is the merest word of all.
All Nature speaks, and ev’n ideal things
Flap shadowy sounds from visionary wings —
But ah! not so when, thus, in realms on high
The eternal voice of God is passing by,
And the red winds are withering in the sky:—
(Pt2)
Into the sunlit ether, caught the ray
Of sunken suns at eve — at noon of night,
While the moon danc’d with the fair stranger light —
Uprear’d upon such height arose a pile
Of gorgeous columns on th’ unburthen’d air,
Flashing from Parian marble that twin smile
Far down upon the wave that sparkled there,
And nursled the young mountain in its lair.
Of molten stars their pavement, such as fall
Thro’ the ebon air, besilvering the pall
Of their own dissolution, while they die —
Adorning then the dwellings of the sky.
A dome, by linked light from Heaven let down,
Sat gently on these columns as a crown —
A window of one circular diamond, there,
Look’d out above into the purple air,
And rays from God shot down that meteor chain
And hallow’d all the beauty twice again,
Save, when, between th’ empyrean and that ring,
Some eager spirit Flapp’d his dusky wing.
But on the pillars Seraph eyes have seen
The dimness of this world: that greyish green
That Nature loves the best Beauty’s grave
Lurk’d in each cornice, round each architrave —
And every sculptur’d cherub thereabout
That from his marble dwelling peered out,
Seem’d earthly in the shadow of his niche —
Achaian statues in a world so rich!
Friezes from Tadmor and Persepolis —
From Balbec, and the stilly, clear abyss
Of beautiful Gomorrah! O, the wave
Is now upon thee — but too late to save!