Dead stars, beneath the midnight's granite cope 
and round your dungeon-gulf that blindly grope 
and fall not, since no lower than any place 
needs when the wing is dash'd and foil'd the face: 
is this your shadow on the watcher's thought 
imposed, or rather hath his anguish taught 
the dumb and suffering dark to send you out, 
reptile, the doubles of his lurking doubt, 
in coasts of night that well might be supposed 
the exiled hall of chaos late-deposed, 
to haunt across this hour's desuetude, 
immense, that whelms in monumental mood 
the broad waste of his spirit, stonily 
strewn with the wreck of his eternity? 

The plumes of night, unfurl'd 
and eyed with fire, are whirl'd 
slowly above this watch, funereal: 
the vast is wide, and yet 
no way lies open; set 
no bar, but the flat deep rises, a placid wall. 
Some throne thou think'st to win 
or pride of thy far kin; 
this incomplete and dusty hour to achieve: 
know that the hour is one, 
eternally begun, 
eternally deferr'd, thy grasp a Danaid sieve. 
O weary realm, O height 
the which exhausted flight 
familiar finds, home of its prompting ill! 
here, there, or there, or there, 
even the same despair; 
rest in thy place, O fool, the heart eludes thee still. 
Rest ? and a new abyss 
suddenly yawns, of this 
the moment sole, and yet the counterpart: 
and thou must house it, thou, 
within thy fleshy Now, 
thyself the abyss that shrinks, the unbounded hermit-heart: 
the mightier heart untold 
whose paining depths enfold 
all loneliness, all height, all vision'd shores; 
and the abyss uncrown'd, 
blank failure thro' each bound 
from the consummate point thy broken hope implores. 

The trees that thro' the tuneful morn had made 
bride-dusk for beams that pierce the melting shade, 
or thro' the opulent afternoon had stood 
lordly, absorb'd in hieratic mood, ? 
now stricken with misgiving of the night 
rise black and ominous, as who invite 
some fearful coming whose foreblown wind shall bow, 
convuls'd and shuddering, each dishevell'd brow: 
the garden that had sparkled thro' its sheen 
all day, a self-sufficing gem serene, 
hiding in emerald depths the vision'd white 
of limbs that follow their own clear delight, 
exhales towards the inaccessible skies, 
commencing, failing, broken, scents or sighs: 

O mother, only, 
where that thou hidest thee, 
crown for the lonely brow, 
bosom for the spent wanderer, 
or balm for ache: 
O mother, 
nightly ? 
undiscoverable ? 
O heart too vast to find, 
whelming our little desire: 
we wander and fail ? 
But on the zenith, mass'd, a glittering throng, 
the distant stars dropt a disdainful song: 

They said, because their parcel-thought 
might nor her shadowy vast embrace, 
nor be refurl'd within that nought 
which is the hid heart of all place, 
they said: She is not anywhere! 
have we not sought her and not seen? 
nor is there found in earth or air 
a sign to tell if she hath been! 
? O fools and blind, not to have found! 
is her desire not as your own? 
stirs she not in the arms that round 
a hopeless clasp, lone with the lone! 
And the tense lips towards her bliss 
in secret cells of anguish'd prayer 
might know her in the broken kiss 
she prompts nor, prompting, fails to share. 
We drift from age to age nor waste 
our strenuous song's exultant tone, 
disdaining or to rest or haste: 
because each place is still our throne. 

The anguish'd doubt broods over Eden; night 
hangs her rent banners thro' the viewless height; 
trophies and glories whence a trouble streams 
of lamentable valour in old dreams: 
out of its blank the watcher's soul is stirr'd 
to take unto itself some olden word: 

O thou that achest, pulse o' the unwed vast, 
now in the distant centre of my brain 
dizzily narrow'd, now beyond the last 
calm circle widening of the starry plain, 
where, on the scatter'd edge of my surmise, 
the twilit dreams fail off and rule is spent 
vainly on vagrant bands the gulfs invite 
to break away to the dark: they, backward sent, 
tho' dumb, with dire infection in their eyes, 
startle the central seat: ? O pulse of night, 
passing the hard throb of sun-smitten blood 
when the noon-world is fused in fire and blent 
with my then unattained hero-mood; 
what will with me the imperious instinct 
that hounds the gulfs together on that place 
vanishing utterly out of mortal trace, 
the citadel where I would seem distinct ? 
if not thou ween'st a vanity, my deep 
unlighted still, the which thy refluent sweep 
intolerably dilates, a tide that draws 
with lunatic desire, distraught and fond, 
to some dark moon of vastness, hung beyond 
our little limits of familiar