Dread hour that lead'st the immemorial round,
With lifted torch revealing one by one
The thronging splendours that the day held bound,
And how each blue abyss enshrines its sun--

Be thou the image of a thought that fares
Forth from itself, and flings its ray ahead,
Leaping the barriers of ephemeral cares,
To where our lives are but the ages' tread,

And let this year be, not the last of youth,
But first--like thee!--of some new train of hours,
If more remote from hope, yet nearer truth,
And kin to the unpetitionable powers.






ALL SOULS

I





A THIN moon faints in the sky o'erhead,