Dim vales --- and shadowy floods --- And cloudy-looking woods,
Whose forms we can't discover
For the tears that drip all over. Huge moons there wax and wane --- Again --- again --- again ---
Every moment of the night
Forever changing places ---
And they put out the star-light With the breath from their pale faces. About twelve by the moon-dial,
One more filmy than the rest
(A kind which, upon trial,
They have found to be the best) Comes down --- still down --- and down, With its centre on the crown
Of a mountain's eminence,
While its wide circumference
In easy drapery falls
Over hamlets, over halls,
Wherever they may be ---
O'er the strange woods --- o'er the sea --- Over spirits on the wing ---
Over every drowsy thing ---
And buries them up quite
In a labyrinth of light ---
And then, how deep! --- O, deep!
Is the passion of their sleep.
In the morning they arise,
And their moony covering
Is soaring in the skies,
With the tempests as they toss,
Like --- almost anything ---
Or a yellow Albatross.
They use that moon no more
For the same end as before ---
Videlicet, a tent
Which I think extravagant:
Its atomies, however,
Into a shower dissever,
Of which those butterflies
Of Earth, who seek the skies,
And so come down again,
(Never-contented things!)
Have brought a specimen
Upon their quivering wings.