Prayer.
109
His hand in benediction? The still air
To her astonished gaze grew all instinct,
Moted with airy forms for ever drawn
Up, by some genial influence. With bent heads,
With hands clasped mutely, and looks downward dropt,
Else searching space, onward they pressed, and drew
Her rapt soul with them. Tears and sighs fell thick,
Mixed with low broken murmurs, and a sound,
Distinct, of music that flowed clearly on,
Like a glad singing stream that lifts its voice
Amid the mourning of sere autumn boughs
Bent with wet leaves and rain. The dense, dull air,
As 'twere a vail, they parted, and it lay
Above the earth like the dusk cloud that hangs
Over some populous mart. And upward still
Through that black space, of which the hue of night
Is a pale mock! And she who fled with them,
Whither, she questioned not, from that great height
Back glancing, saw the universe as one
Who, looking from a mountain top, beholds
Faint clustering lights, that, twinkling through the gloom,
Mark where a city stands. And upward still!
To her astonished gaze grew all instinct,
Moted with airy forms for ever drawn
Up, by some genial influence. With bent heads,
With hands clasped mutely, and looks downward dropt,
Else searching space, onward they pressed, and drew
Her rapt soul with them. Tears and sighs fell thick,
Mixed with low broken murmurs, and a sound,
Distinct, of music that flowed clearly on,
Like a glad singing stream that lifts its voice
Amid the mourning of sere autumn boughs
Bent with wet leaves and rain. The dense, dull air,
As 'twere a vail, they parted, and it lay
Above the earth like the dusk cloud that hangs
Over some populous mart. And upward still
Through that black space, of which the hue of night
Is a pale mock! And she who fled with them,
Whither, she questioned not, from that great height
Back glancing, saw the universe as one
Who, looking from a mountain top, beholds
Faint clustering lights, that, twinkling through the gloom,
Mark where a city stands. And upward still!
