Swelling and pulsing like deep music heard
On sacred summer eves
When the loud organ grieves
And thrills with lyric life the incensed air,
While 'mid the pillared gloom the people bow in prayer.
III
Now is it some huge bird with monstrous vans
That through the sunset plies its shadowy way,
Catching on outstretched pinions the last play
Of failing tint celestial! See! it spans
Darkly the fading west,
And now its beamy crest
Follows from sight the glittering, golden sun;
And now one mighty wing-beat more, and all is done.
IV
But in those skyey spaces what dread change!
Thus have we seen the mortal turn immortal;
So doth the day's soul die, as through death's portal
The soul of man takes up its heavenward range.
A million orbs endue
The unfathomable blue—
Till, the long miracle of night withdrawn,
The world beholds once more the miracle of dawn.
V
Dawn, eve, and night, the iridescent seas,
Bright moon, enlightening sun, and quivering stars,
The midnight rose whose petals are the bars
Of Boreal lights, the pomp of autumn trees,
The pearl of curvèd shells,
The prismy bow that swells
'Gainst stormy skies—these witness, these are sign
Of thee, O spirit of Beauty, eternal and divine!
