Wayconnell Tower.
The tangling wealth by June amassed1
Left rock and ruin vaguely seen :2
Thick ivy-cables held them fast ;3
Light boughs descended, floating green.4
Slow turned the stairs, a breathless height ;5
And far above they set me free,6
When all the fans of golden light7
Were closing down into the sea.8
A window half way up the wall9
They led to ; yet so high was that,10
The tallest trees were but so tall11
As just to reach to where I sat.12
Aloft within the mouldered tower13
Dark ivy fringed its round of sky ;14
Where slowly in the deepening hour15
The first new stars unveiled on high.16
The rustling of the foliage dim,17
The murmur of the cool grey tide,—18
With tears that trembled on the brim,19
An echo sad to these I sighed.20
O earth, I sighed, full strange it seems,21
I weep to feel how fair thou art !22
O heaven, instinct with tender beams,23
It is thy mildness wrings my heart !24
O tide, no smallest wave there runs25
In dying ripples round thy shore,26
But murmurs, “ What thou owned’st once,27
Is lost, and lost for evermore !”28
Most faintly falls thy ceaseless tune ;29
The cloud along the sunset sleeps ;30
The phantom of the golden moon31
Is kindled in thy quivering deeps.32
Meseems a magic term I fill,33
Fixed in this ruin-window strange ;34
Through years of sadness watching still35
A moon, a sea, that never change.36
And yet the moon is mounting slow ;37
And yet the sea is ebbing fast ;38
And from the dusky niche I go ;39
And this, like former dreams, is past.40
And other clearer voices call41
To towers that are not builded yet ;42
And, stepping from the perished wall,43
My feet on steadfast earth I set.44