The secret things of the grave are there,
Where all but this frame must surely be, 20
Though the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous ear
No longer will live to hear or to see
All that is great and all that is strange
In the boundless realm of unending change.

Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death? 25
Who lifteth the veil of what is to come? 
Who painteth the shadows that are beneath
The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb? 
Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be
With the fears and the love for that which we see? 30

***

A SUMMER EVENING CHURCHYARD.

LECHLADE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE.

[Composed September, 1815.  Published with “Alastor”, 1816.]

The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere
Each vapour that obscured the sunset’s ray;
And pallid Evening twines its beaming hair
In duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day: 
Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men, 5
Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.

They breathe their spells towards the departing day,
Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea;
Light, sound, and motion own the potent sway,
Responding to the charm with its own mystery. 10
The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass
Knows not their gentle motions as they pass.

Thou too, aereal Pile! whose pinnacles
Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire,
Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells, 15
Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire,
Around whose lessening and invisible height
Gather among the stars the clouds of night.

The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres: 
And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound, 20
Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs,
Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around,
And mingling with the still night and mute sky
Its awful hush is felt inaudibly.

Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild 25
And terrorless as this serenest night: 
Here could I hope, like some inquiring child
Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human sight
Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep
That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep. 30

***

TO —.

[Published with “Alastor”, 1816.  See Editor’s Note.]

DAKRTSI DIOISO POTMON ’APOTMON.

Oh! there are spirits of the air,
And genii of the evening breeze,
And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair
As star-beams among twilight trees:—­
Such lovely ministers to meet 5
Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.