When to a rarer height thou wheelest up,

Hast thou that awful thrill of an ascension—

The lone, lost feeling in the vasty vault?—

O, for thine ear, to hear the ascending tones

Range the ethereal chambers!—then to feel

A harmony, while from the eternal depth

Steals nought but the pure starlight evermore!—

And then to list the echoes, faint and mellow,

Far, far below, breathe from the hollow earth

For thee, soft, sweet petition, to return.