Alastor; or, the Spirit of Solitude

Earth, Ocean, Air, beloved brotherhood! / If our great Mother has imbued my soul / With aught of natural piety to feel / Your love, and recompense the boon with mine; / If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even, / With sunset and its gorgeous ministers, / And solemn midnight's tingling silentness; / If autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood, / And winter robing with pure snow and crowns / Of starry ice the grey grass and bare boughs; / If spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes / Her first sweet kisses, have been dear to me; / If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast / I consciously have injured, but still loved / And cherished these my kindred; then forgive / This boast, beloved brethren, and withdraw / No portion of your wonted favour now!

Mother of this unfathomable world! / Favour my solemn song, for I have loved / Thee ever, and thee only; I have watched / Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps, / And my heart ever gazes on the depth / Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed / In charnels and on coffins, where black death / Keeps record of the trophies won from thee, / Hoping to still these obstinate questionings / Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost, / Thy messenger, to render up the tale / Of what we are. In lone and silent hours, / When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness, / Like an inspired and desperate alchymist / Staking his very life on some dark hope, / Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks / With my most innocent love, until strange tears, / Uniting with those breathless kisses, made / Such magic as compels the charmed night / To render up thy charge:...and, though ne'er yet / Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary, / Enough from incommunicable dream, / And twilight phantasms, and deep noon-day thought, / Has shone within me, that serenely now / And moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre / Suspended in the solitary dome / Of some mysterious and deserted fane, / I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain / May modulate with murmurs of the air, / And motions of the forests and the sea, / And voice of living beings, and woven hymns / Of night and day, and the deep heart of man.