Half to the sky those steep sides loomed upspread,
Rank-grassed, and cluttered by a crumbling flight
Of lava stairs that scaled the fear-topped height
In steps too vast for any human tread.
I shrieked – and knew what primal star and year
Had sucked me back from man's dream-transient sphere!
XXXV. Evening Star
I saw it from that hidden, silent place
Where the old wood half shuts the meadow in.
It shone through all the sunset's glories – thin
At first, but with a slowly brightening face.
Night came, and that lone beacon, amber-hued,
Beat on my sight as never it did of old;
The evening star – but grown a thousandfold
More haunting in this hush and solitude.
It traced strange pictures on the quivering air –
Half-memories that had always filled my eyes –
Vast towers and gardens; curious seas and skies
Of some dim life – I never could tell where.
But now I knew that through the cosmic dome
Those rays were calling from my far, lost home.
XXXVI. Continuity
There is in certain ancient things a trace
Of some dim essence – more than form or weight;
A tenuous aether, indeterminate,
Yet linked with all the laws of time and space.
A faint, veiled sign of continuities
That outward eyes can never quite descry;
Of locked dimensions harbouring years gone by,
And out of reach except for hidden keys.
It moves me most when slanting sunbeams glow
On old farm buildings set against a hill,
And paint with life the shapes which linger still
From centuries less a dream than this we know.
In that strange light I feel I am not far
From the fixt mass whose sides the ages are.