Page:Songs of the Affections.pdf/22

Of slumbering waters wafted, or the dells
Of mountains, hollow with sweet echo-cells;
But, as they murmur'd on, the mortal chill
Pass'd from me, like a mist before the morn,
And, to that glorious intercourse upborne,
By slow degrees, a calm, divinely still,
Possess'd my frame:—I sought that lighted eye,—
From its intense and searching purity
I drank in soul!— I question'd of the dead—
Of the hush'd, starry shores their footsteps tread—
And I was answer'd:—if remembrance there,
With dreamy whispers fill the immortal air;
If Thought, here piled from many a jewel-heap,
Be treasure in that pensive land to keep;
If Love, o'ersweeping change, and blight, and blast,
Find there the music of his home at last;
I ask'd, and I was answer'd:—Full and high
Was that communion with eternity,
Too rich for aught so fleeting!—Like a knell
Swept o'er my sense its closing words,—"Farewell,