WHISPERS of heavenly death, murmur’d I hear;
Labial gossip of night–sibilant chorals;
Footsteps gently ascending–mystical breezes, wafted soft and low;
Ripples of unseen rivers–tides of a current, flowing, forever
flowing;
(Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human
tears?)
I see, just see, skyward, great cloud-masses;
Mournfully, slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing;
With, at times, a half-dimm’d, sadden’d, far-off star,
Appearing and disappearing.
(Some parturition, rather–some solemn, immortal birth: 10
On the frontiers, to eyes impenetrable,
Some Soul is passing over.)
