A might, a mystery; and the quivering light
Of wind-sway'd lamps, made spectral in their sight
The forms of buried beauty, sad, yet fair,
Gleaming along the walls with braided hair,
Long in the dust grown dim; and she, too, saw,
But with the spirit's eye of raptured awe,
Those pictured shapes!—a bright, yet solemn train,
Beckoning, they floated o'er her dreamy brain,
Clothed in diviner hues; while on her ear
Strange voices fell, which none besides might hear,
Sweet, yet profoundly mournful, as the sigh
Of winds o'er harp-strings through a midnight sky;
And thus it seem'd, in that low thrilling tone,
Th' ancestral shadows call'd away their own.
Long thy fainting soul hath yearn'd
For the step that ne'er return'd;
Long thine anxious ear hath listen'd,