Above its domes the gulfs accumulate To where the sea-winds trumpet forth their screed; But here the buried waters take no heed-- Deaf, and with closèd lips from press of weight Imposed by ocean. Dim, inanimate, On temples of an unremembered creed Involved in long, slow tentacles of weed, The dead tide lies immovable as Fate.
From out the ponderous-vaulted ocean-dome, A clouded light is questionably shed On altars of a goddess garlanded With blossoms of some weird and hueless vine; And wingèd, fleet, through skies beneath the foam, Like silent birds the sea-things dart and shine.
How dense the glooms of Death, impervious To aught of old memorial light! How strait The sunless road, suspended, separate, That leads to later birth! Untremulous With any secret morn of stars, to us The Past is closed as with division great Of planet-girdling seas--unknown its gate, Beyond the mouths of shadows cavernous.
Oh! may it be that Death in kindness strips The soul of memory's raiment, rendering blind Our vision, lest surmounted deeps appal, As when on mountain peaks a glance behind Betrays with knowledge, and the climber slips Down gulfs of fear to some enormous fall?
Now as the twilight's doubtful interval Closes with night's accomplished certainty, A wizard wind goes crying eerily; And in the glade unsteady shadows crawl, Timed to the trees, whose voices rear and fall As with some dreadful witches' ecstasy, Flung upward to the dark, whence glitters free The crooked moon, impendent over all.
Twin veils of covering cloud and silence thrown Across the movement and the sound of things, Make blank the night, till in the broken west The moon's ensanguined blade awhile is shown.... The night grows whole again.... The shadows rest, Gathered beneath a greater shadow's wings.
The cherry-snows are falling now; Down from the blossom-clouded sky Of zephyr-troubled twig and bough, In widely settling whirls they fly.
The orchard earth, unclothed and brown, Is wintry-hued with petals bright; E'en as the snow they glimmer down; Brief as the snow's their stainless white.
'Tis said these blossom-lanterns light The elves upon their midnight way; That fairy toil and elfin play Receive their beams of magic white.