That night I sat listening, as in a swoon,

With half-closed eyes,

To far-off bells, low-lulling as a tune

That drifts and dies

Beneath the flowery fingers of the June

Harping to summer skies.

And then I dreamed the world I knew was gone,

And some one brought,—

Leading me far o'er sainted hill and lawn,

In heavenly thought,—

My soul where well the sources of the dawn

With dew and fire fraught.

Above me the majestic dome of night,

With star on star,

Sparkled; in which one star shone blinding bright;

Radiant as spar

That walls the halls of morning, pearly white

Around her golden car.

Their bestial gods, caked thick with gems and gold,

Their blasphemies

Of beauty, rent; 'mid ruined altars rolled;

Their agonies

And rites abolished; and their priests of old—

Dust on the desert breeze.

Then Syrian valleys, purple with veiling mist,

Meseemed I trailed,

Where the frail floweret, by the dewdrop kissed,

Soft-blushing, quailed;

And drowned in dingled deeps of amethyst

The moon-mad bulbul wailed.

On glimmering wolds I seemed to hear the bleat

Of folded flocks:

Then shepherds passed me, bare of head and feet;

And then an ox

A manger then I seemed to see where bent,

In adoration,

Above a babe, Men of the Orient,

Where, low of station,

His mother lay, while round them swam sweet scent

And sounds of jubilation.

And then I woke. The rose-white moon above

Bloomed on my sight;—

And in her train the stars of winter drove,

Light upon light;

While Yuletide bells rocked, pealing "peace and love"

Down all the aisles of night.