Oppressed with overwhelming weight, Down fell the edifice; When touched, as by the hand of Fate, My gloom was gone. I felt my state So light, I sobbed for bliss.

The loud winds, spent in seeking rest, Dropped dead. My fevered brow Drank coolness from the grass it pressed; And in my desolated breast A change began to grow,

p. 115While feeling those tears slowly drain The load of grief which had A sluggish curse within me lain, Save when remembrance wrought my brain For vivid moments mad.

p. 115

My tears, as treasures of a wreck That in the ocean slept, Recovered, ran without a check; And earth was my good mother’s neck To which I clung and wept.

I rose at length, and felt a dense Benumbed dead weight. And now The night air hung in deep suspense! A singing hush that pressed my sense And stunned me like a blow:

Through my lids clenched the living air In gold and purple rings p. 116Danced musically round me there, The light it held throbbed with the glare And beat of rapid wings.

p. 116

Mine eyes I dared not try to raise; My Lady’s beamed on me In fixed serenity of gaze, And were what old sunshiny days In childhood used to be.

A gasping lapse; and I was whirled Round the faint void of space; In dizzy circles hugely hurled, I saw the constellated world With every orb embrace,

To one stupendous vortex-light, Spinning a fiery ram, Then fail, struck out by sudden night; When swung adown in headlong might, Earth’s touch shook through my brain.

p. 117The dumb sound in mine ears was burst By her portentous voice; As sweet as death to one accursed, As unto one near blind for thirst A running water’s noise.

p. 117

Her voice in some translucent star, Remote, beyond my sight, Was singing marvellously far; And yet so strangely near to jar, As jars too strong a light.

She sang a song. She warbled low, She did not sing in words; I felt it in my spirit glow, And knew it, as with joy I know The morning shouts of birds.

But hard the task I undertake, With mortal tongue to reach p. 118The utterance of my Love, and make Her high immortal 

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