Page:Roden Noel - A Little Child's Monument - 1881.pdf/42

The mortal cold possessing human hearts
Weighs down their eyes in deep sepulchral gloom.
But if some Angel's sword from forth the night,
With vasty voice of Doom, by human tongues
Called thunder, leapt, and smote me out of all
These evil dreams named living, might I find
My little child, and with him find the Lord?

We journey ever higher, through a grove
Of moonlit chestnut, where a babbling stream,
At intervals, in open forest glades,
Flashes with ruffled, wandering, pale flame.
The air is richly laden with sweet spoil
From fragrant flower, and foliage faint-green;
Shadowy-folded hills and dells involved
Whisper of verdure lush, luxuriant,
Known to fair elves, or rills who tinkling glide,
Telling sweet secrets, haunted of shy beams,
Whene'er the whims of leafy Ariels,
And cloudy gossamer, aloft allow
Their gentle wandering; tall asphodel,
And flowery fennel, either side our way,
Often we dim discern; but where the woods
No longer in their colonnades of gloom
Involve our path, beyond the precipice,
Behold! how all the regions of the north,
Height, depth, and breadth, are held, filled, dominated