Still spoke of hands that founded Babylon!108
So in the wrecks, the Lord of young Romance
By fallen pillars laid him musing down.
More large and large the moving shades advance,
Blending in one dim silence sad and wan
The past, the present, ruin and the man.
Now, o'er his lids life's gentlest influence stole,109
Life's gentlest influence, yet the likest death!
That nightly proof how little needs the soul
Light from the sense, or being from the breath,
When all life knows a life unknown supplies,
And airy worlds around a Spirit rise.
Still through the hazy mist of stealing sleep,110
His eyes explore the watchful guardian's wing,
There, where it broods upon the moss-grown heap,
With plumes that all the stars are silvering.
Slow close the lids—reopening with a start
As shoots a nameless terror through his heart.
That strange wild awe which haunted Childhood thrills,111
When waking at the dead of Dark, alone,
A sense of sudden solitude which chills
The blood;—a shrinking as from shapes unknown;
An instinct both of some protection fled,
And of the coming of some ghastly dread.
He look'd, and lo, the Dove was seen no more,112
Lone lay the lifeless wrecks beneath the moon,
And the one loss gave all that seem'd before
Desolate,—twofold desolation!
How slight a thing, whose love our trust has been,
Alters the world, when it no more is seen!
He strove to speak, but voice was gone from him.113
As in that loss new might the terror took,
His veins congeal'd; and, interfused and dim,
Shadow and moonlight swam before his look;
Bristled his hair; and all the strong dismay
Seized as an eagle when it grasps its prey.
Senses and soul confused, and jarr'd, and blent,114
Lay crush'd beneath the intolerable Power;
Then over all, one flash, in lightning, rent
The veil between the Immortal and the Hour;
Life heard the voice of unembodied breath,
And Sleep stood trembling face to face with Death.