On me, methinks, that shock of gloom had fall'n
Unfelt, and like the sun I gazed upon,
Which, lapt in seeming dissolution,
And dipping his head low beneath the verge,
Yet bearing round about him his own day,
In confidence of unabated strength,
Steppeth from heaven to heaven, from light to light,
And holding his undimmed forehead far
Into a clearer zenith, pure of cloud;
So bearing on thro' Being limitless
The triumph of this foretaste, I had merged
Glory in glory, without sense of change.

We trod the shadow of the downward hill;
We pass'd from light to dark. On the other side
Is scooped a cavern and a mountain-hall,
Which none have fathom'd. If you go far in
(The country people rumour) you may hear
The moaning of the woman and the child,
Shut in the secret chambers of the rock.
I too have heard a sound--perchance of streams
Running far-off within its inmost halls,
The home of darkness, but the cavern mouth,
Half overtrailed with a wanton weed
Gives birth to a brawling stream, that stepping lightly
Adown a natural stair of tangled roots,
Is presently received in a sweet grove
Of eglantine, a place of burial
Far lovelier than its cradle; for unseen
But taken with the sweetness of the place,