Chorus of Spirits

From unremembered ages we
Gentle guides and guardians be
Of heaven-oppressed mortality.
And we breathe, and sicken not,
The atmosphere of human thought:
Be it dim, and dank, and gray,
Like a storm-extinguished day,
Travelled o'er by dying gleams;

Be it bright as all between Cloudless skies and windless streams,

Silent, liquid, and serene.

As the birds within the wind,

As the fish within the wave,

As the thoughts of man's own mind
Float through all above the grave,
We make there our liquid lair,
Voyaging cloudlike and unpent
Through the boundless element:
Thence we bear the prophecy
Which begins and ends in thee!

Ione.

To his pillow hovering came,

And I knew it was the same

Which had kindled long ago

Pity, eloquence, and woe;

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More yet come, one by one: the air around them

Looks radiant as the air around a star.

And the world awhile below
Wore the shade its lustre made.
It has borne me here as fleet
As Desire's lightning feet;

I must ride it back ere morrow,
Or the sage will wake in sorrow.
Fourth Spirit

On a poet's lips I slept

Dreaming like a love-adept

In the sound his breathing kept;

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