Telling the thing we fain would know,
Yet could not earlier; only now
Now when the tense and busy brow
Swims, and the hands fall pale and dead,
And in a voice serene but dread
Life’s mystic sister, veiled and pale,
Whispers the old, the unknown tale,
Writ on some dim, mysterious scroll,
Preludings of one magic whole.
Yet, even while we strain to hear,