For a strife was within me of madness and death.
I saw them—the powers of the wind and the ocean,
The rush of whose pinion bears onward the storms;
Like the sweep of the white-rolling wave was their motion—
I felt their dim presence, but knew not their forms!
I saw them—the mighty of ages departed—
The dead were around me that night on the hill:
From their eyes, as they pass’d, a cold radiance they darted,—
There was light on my soul, but my heart’s blood was chill.
I saw what man looks on, and dies—but my spirit