The Poetical Works of William Motherwell/Come Down, Ye Spirits!
Come Down, Ye Spirits.
Come down, ye Spirits! in your might, come down!
Come down, ye Spirits of this midnight hour;
Come down in all your dim sublimity
And majesty of terror! How I joy
To meet you in your own dark territories,
And hold mysterious converse in a tongue
That hath quite perished among the sons
Of fallen man! Ye Spirits that do roam
With unconfined footsteps o'er the paths
Of measureless eternity;—ye who skim
The bosomed cloud, or pace with hasty step
The earth's green surface, and its every spot,
Though ne'er so lone, deserted, and profound;
Repeople with strange sounds and voices sweet,
Which circle round, even when all else is still,
And breed in vulgar breasts a nameless dread
And awe inexplicable; which bids the flesh
To creep, as if its every fibre were
A many-footed and a living thing,
Com edown! come down!
I hear ye come! I hear your sounding wings
Beat the impassive air with mighty strokes,
And in the flickering moonshine I can see
Your shadowy limbs, descending like a mist
Of fleecy whiteness, on the slumbering earth.
And now I hear the mingled harmonies
Of all your voices, fill the vaulted sky.
Ye call upon me—and my soul is glad
To meet you on your pilgrimage, and join
Its feeble echoes to your mighty song.