TO A. J. SCOTT.

I walked all night: the darkness did not yield.

Around me fell a mist, a weary rain,

Enduring long; till a faint dawn revealed

A temple's front, cloud-curtained on the plain.

Closed were the lofty doors that led within;

But by a wicket one might entrance gain.

O light, and awe, and silence! Entering in,

The blackness and chaotic rain were lost

In hopeful spaces. Then I heard a thin

Sweet sound of voices low, together tossed,

As if they sought a harmony to find

Which they knew once; but none of all that host

Could call the far-fled music back to mind.

Loud voices, distance-low, wandered along

The pillared paths, and up the arches twined

With sister-arches, rising, throng on throng,

Up to the roof's dim distance. If sometimes

Self-gathered voices made a burst of song,

Straightway I heard again but as the chimes

Of many bells through Sabbath morning sent,

Each its own tale to tell of heavenly climes.

Yet such the hope, one might be well content

Here to be low, and lowly keep a door;

For like Truth's herald, solemnly that went,

I heard thy voice, and humbly loved it more,

Walking the word-sea to this ear of mine,

Than any voice of power I heard before.

Yet as the harp may, tremulous, combine

Low ghostlike sounds with organ's loudest tone,

Let not my music fear to come to thine:

Thy heart, with organ-tempests of its own,

Will hear Aeolian sighs from thin chords blown.