It wreathes the burdened air
So strangely everywhere
That I could almost fear
This silence drear
Where no one song-bird sings
And dream that wizard things
Mighty for hate or love
Were close above.
White as the fog and fair
Drifting through the middle air
In magic dances dread
Over my head.
Yet these should know me too
Lover and bondman true,
One that has honoured well
The mystic spell
Of earth's most solemn hours
Wherein the ancient powers
Of dryad, elf, or faun
Or leprechaun
Oft have their faces shown
To me that walked alone
Seashore or haunted fen
Or mountain glen
Wherefore I will not fear
To walk the woodlands sere
Into this autumn day
Far, far away.
Part II Hesitation
XXII. L'Apprenti Sorcier
Suddenly there came to me
The music of a mighty sea
That on a bare and iron shore
Thundered with a deeper roar
Than all the tides that leap and run
With us below the real sun:
Because the place was far away,
Above, beyond our homely day,
Neighbouring close the frozen clime
Where out of all the woods of time,
Amid the frightful seraphim
The fierce, cold eyes of Godhead gleam,
Revolving hate and misery
And wars and famines yet to be.
And in my dreams I stood alone
Upon a shelf of weedy stone,
And saw before my shrinking eyes
The dark, enormous breakers rise,
And hover and fall with deafening thunder
Of thwarted foam that echoed under
The ledge, through many a cavern drear,
With hollow sounds of wintry fear.
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