WHERE of old, responsive As the wind and foam, Rose the joyous echoes, Desolate I roam, Nor find one lingering sound to hail the wanderer home. Silence, long unbroken, Break thy rigid spell! Free the fairy captives Of the mountain dell, If yet in veiling mist the mimic minions dwell. Children of the distance, Shall I call in vain? From your slumbers waking, Speak to me again As erst in childhood woke your soft AEolian strain! Hark! the wavy chorus, Faint and far away, Like a dream returning In the light of day, -- Too fond to flee; alas! too timorous to stay! Hints of heavenly voices, Tone for silvery tone, Move in rarer measures Than to us are known, Still wooing hence to worlds beyond the shadowy zone. Pausing, still they linger As in love's delay, With sibyllic omen Seeming thus to say; "Of all the vanished Past, we Echoes only stay!" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON AN INTAGLIO HEAD OF MINERVA (1) by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH WHAT AILS THIS HEART O'MINE? by SUSANNA BLAMIRE GERONTION by THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT SHADOWS by VICTOR GUSTAVE PLARR WHITE FIELDS by JAMES STEPHENS SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |