How slow was I to come, how loth to obey;
As slow, as sad, as lingeringly loth,
I fade, I vanish, sink, and cease to be,
By the same sovereign strong compulsion borne:
Ah, if I vanish, take me into thee!’
She spoke, nor, speaking, ceased I listening; but
I was alone, yet not alone, with her
And she with me, and you with us, my sons,
As at the first;—and yet not wholly—yea,
And that which I had witnessed thus in you,