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’TWAS at that sober hour when the light of day is receding,
And from surrounding things the hues where with day has adorn’d them
Fade, like the hopes of youth, till the beauty of earth is departed:
Pensive, though not in thought, I stood at the window, beholding
Mountain and lake and vale; the valley disrobed of its verdure;
Derwent retaining yet from eve a glassy reflection
Where his expanded breast, then still and smooth as a mirror,
Under the woods reposed; the hills that, calm and majestic,
Lifted their heads in the silent sky, from far Glaramar
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| 2 | THE TRANCE. |
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Bleacrag, and Maidenmawr, to Grizedal and westermost Withop.
Dark and distinct they rose. The clouds had gather’d above them
High in the middle air, huge, purple, pillowy masses,
While in the west beyond was the last pale tint of the twilight;
Green as a stream in the glen whose pure and chrysolite waters
Flow o’er a schistous bed, and serene as the age of the righteous.
Earth was hush’d and still; all motion and sound were suspended:
Neither man was heard, bird, beast, nor humming of insect,
Only the voice of the Greta, heard only when all is in stillness.
Pensive I stood and alone, the hour and the scene had subdued me,
And as I gazed in the west, where Infinity seem’d to be open,
Yearn’d to be free from time, and felt that this life is a thraldom.
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Thus as I stood, the bell which awhile from its warning had rested,
Sent forth its note again, toll, toll, thro’ the silence of evening.
’Tis a deep dull sound that is heavy and mournful at all times,
For it tells of mortality always. But heavier this day
Fell on the conscious ear its deeper and mournfuller import,
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| THE TRANCE. | 3 |
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Yea, in the heart it sunk; for this was the day when the herald
Breaking his wand should proclaim, that George our King
was departed.
Thou art released! I cried: thy soul is deliver’d from bondage!
Thou who hast lain so long in mental and visual darkness,
Thou art in yonder heaven! thy place is in light and in glory.
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Come, and behold! ... methought a startling Voice from the twilight
Answered; and therewithal I felt a stroke as of lightning,
With a sound like the rushing of winds, or the roaring of waters.
If from without it came, I knew not, so sudden the seizure;
Or if the brain itself in that strong flash had expended
All its electric stores. Of strength and of thought it bereft me;
Hearing, and sight, and sense were gone; and when I awaken’d
’Twas from a dream of death, in silence and uttermost darkness;
Knowing not where or how, nor if I was rapt in the body,
Nor if entranced, or dead. But all around me was blackness,
Utterly blank and void, as if this ample creation
Had been blotted out, and I were alone in the chaos.
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| 4 | THE TRANCE. |
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Yet had I even then a living hope to sustain me
Under that aweful thought, and I strengthen’d my spirit with prayer.
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Comfort I sought and support, and both were found in retiring
Into that inner world, the soul’s strong hold and her kingdom.
Then came again the Voice, but then no longer appalling,
Like the voice of a friend it came: O son of the Muses!
Be of good heart, it said, and think not that thou art abandon’d;
For to thy mortal sight shall the Grave unshadow its secrets;
Such as of yore the Florentine saw, Hell’s
perilous chambers
He who trod in his strength; and the arduous Mountain of Penance,
And the regions of Paradise, sphere within sphere intercircled.
Child of Earth, look up! and behold what passes before thee.
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