Insomnia.
31
But I lay still fordone;
And felt its Shadow on me dark and solemn
And steadfast as a monumental column,
And thought drear thoughts of Doom, and heard the bells chime One.
And felt its Shadow on me dark and solemn
And steadfast as a monumental column,
And thought drear thoughts of Doom, and heard the bells chime One.
And then I raised my weary eyes and saw,
By some slant moonlight on the ceiling thrown
And faint lamp-gleam, that Image of my awe,
Still as a pillar of basaltic stone,
But all enveloped in a sombre shroud
Except the wan face drooping heavy-browed,
With sad eyes fixed on mine;
Sad weary yearning eyes, but fixed remorseless
Upon my eyes yet wearier, that were forceless
To bear the cruel pressure; cruel, unmalign.
By some slant moonlight on the ceiling thrown
And faint lamp-gleam, that Image of my awe,
Still as a pillar of basaltic stone,
But all enveloped in a sombre shroud
Except the wan face drooping heavy-browed,
With sad eyes fixed on mine;
Sad weary yearning eyes, but fixed remorseless
Upon my eyes yet wearier, that were forceless
To bear the cruel pressure; cruel, unmalign.
Wherefore I asked for what I knew too well:
O ominous midnight Presence, What art Thou?
Whereto in tones that sounded like a knell:
"I am the Second Hour, appointed now
To watch beside thy slumberless unrest."
Then I Thus both, unlike, alike unblest;
For I should sleep, you fly:
Are not those wings beneath thy mantle moulded?
O Hour! unfold those wings so straitly folded,
And urge thy natural flight beneath the moonlit sky.
O ominous midnight Presence, What art Thou?
Whereto in tones that sounded like a knell:
"I am the Second Hour, appointed now
To watch beside thy slumberless unrest."
Then I Thus both, unlike, alike unblest;
For I should sleep, you fly:
Are not those wings beneath thy mantle moulded?
O Hour! unfold those wings so straitly folded,
And urge thy natural flight beneath the moonlit sky.
