One shape was more than mortal fair;
      He seemed embodied out of light;
      The sunbeams rippled through his hair;
    His cheeks were of the color bright
      That dyes young evening, and his eyes
      Glowed like twin planets, that to sight
    Increase in lustre and in size,
      The more intent and long our gaze. 
      Full on the future’s pain and prize,
    Half seen through hanging cloud and haze,
      His steady, far, and yearning look
      Blazed forth beneath his crown of bays. 
    His radiant vesture, as it shook,
      Dripped with great drops of golden dew;
      And at each step his white steed took,
    The sparks beneath his hoof-prints flew,
      As if a half-cooled lava-flood
      He trod, each firm step breaking through. 
    This figure seemed so wholly good,
      That as a moth which reels in light,
      Unknown till then, nor understood,
    My dazzled soul swam; and I might
      Have swooned, and in that presence died,
      From the mere splendor of the sight,
    Had not his lips, serene with pride
      And cold, cruel purpose, made me swerve
      From aught their fierce curl might deride. 
    A clarion of a single curve
      Hung at his side by slender bands;
      And when he blew, with faintest nerve,
    Life burst throughout those lonely lands;
      Graves yawned to hear, Time stood aghast,
      The whole world rose and clapped its hands. 
    Then on the other shape I cast
      My eyes.  I know not how or why
      He held my spellbound vision fast. 
    Instinctive terror bade me fly,
      But curious wonder checked my will. 
      The mysteries of his awful eye,
    So dull, so deep, so dark, so chill,
      And the calm pity of his brow
      And massive features hard and still,
    Lovely, but threatening, and the bow
      Of his sad neck, as if he told
    Earth’s graves and sorrows as they grow,
    Cast me in musings manifold
      Before his pale, unanswering face. 
      A thousand winters might have rolled
    Above his head.  I saw no trace
      Of youth or age, of time or change,
      Upon his fixed immortal grace. 
    A smell of new-turned mould, a strange,
      Dank, earthen odor from him blew,
      Cold as the icy winds that range
    The moving hills which sailors view
      Floating around the Northern Pole,
      With horrors to the shivering crew. 
    His garments, black as mined coal,
      Cast midnight shadows on his way;
      And as his black steed softly stole,
    Cat-like and stealthy, jocund day
      Died out before him, and the grass,
      Then sear and tawny, turned to gray. 
    The hardy flowers that will not pass
      For the shrewd autumn’s chilling rain
      Closed their bright eyelids, and, alas!