The twilight reigns above the fallen noon Within an ancient land, whose after-time Lies like a shadow o'er its ruined prime. Like rising mist the night increases soon...
I dreamed that each most lovely, perfect thing That Nature hath, of sound, and form, and hue - The winds, the grass, the light-concentering dew, The gleam and swiftness of the sea-bird's wing;...
A voice came to me from the night, and said, What profit hast thou in thy dreaming Of the years that are set And the years yet unrisen? Hast thou found them tillable lands?...
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 clos'd lips from press of weight...
Where mandrakes, crying from the moonless fen, Told how a witch, with gaze of owl or bat Found, and each root malevolently fat Pulled for her waiting cauldron, on my ken...
O many-gulfed, unalterable one, Whose deep sustains Far-drifting world and sun, Thou wast ere ever star put out on thee; And thou shalt be When never world remains;...
Turn round, O Life, and know with eyes aghast The breast that fed thee - Death, disguiseless, stern; Even now, within thy mouth, from tomb and urn, The dust is sweet. All nurture that thou hast...
A plummet of the changing universe, Far-cast, I flare Through gulfs the sun's uncharted orbits bind, And spaces bare That intermediate darks immerse By road of sun nor world confined....
Oh, list to the wind of the night, oh, hark, How it shrieks as it goes on its hurrying quest! Forever its voice is a voice of the dark, Forever its voice is a voice of unrest....