  Heaven at last Is bared, and the whole world one radiant room— Black are the shadows, in great pools of gloom By copse and thicket cast. The cattle browse With sound of gentle breathing, and their breath Is mild in glimmering meadows, or beneath Drooped branches, where they drowse; While ’mongst the chill Shadows, and cold, clear moonlight all about, A single bat goes dipping in and out Softly; and all is still. Silence around— Save for a cricket! Lapped in slumb’rous peace Lie hill and meadowland, the shining seas Lap on them without sound. It is earth’s cry Lifted in adoration: the old dream, Beauty, is with her, and her hour supreme That goes so swiftly by. Too well she knows The sweet Illusion, from no earthly shore Visitant, the bright word that evermore Troubles her dark repose. Her heart lies bare— Drunken, drunken, she lifts a dreamy breast; Hour by hour, in rapture and unrest Flows the unending prayer. The path of night Reaches, from rim to rim, a radiant road Whereon the exalted Beauty walks abroad In wonder and wild light. Upon what eyes, Lifted in homesickness, now falls again The loveliness that haunts the world with pain— |
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