Poems (Hinxman)/The Knell
THE KNELL.
I sat without the pinewood, where a ledge Of smooth-washed pebbles met its ruddy floor,The rippled lake lisped softly in the sedge; Green lay the hills upon the further shore.
The pigeons made the inner forest thrill, The April sky above was high and clear,The cuckoos, on the plain unfrequent still, Were lavish of their mellow voices, here.
Folded in Nature's soft embrace, I lent All my lulled being to her dreamy spell;—When, like a death-shot through a sleeping tent, Boomed from between the hills a funeral knell.
I felt the warm air shudder at the blow; And all the timid landscape seemed to shrinkBefore the burthen of this alien woe, Which touched in me alone an answering link.
But I,—I saw the drooping pall and plumes, The Priest bare-headed, in his fluttering vest,The group of sable mourners "mid the tombs, The kerchiefs white to stooping faces prest.
The dark cloud crossed my soul, then ere I knew, Dispersed, till all was tranquil as before;And when that knell returned in season due, A different meaning to my heart it bore.
No more a Tongue of sorrow, but a Key— A brazen Key it seemed, whose touch of mightThrew back the bounds of Nature, and made free My spirit to all space, and depth, and height.
It pierced the still blue fathoms at my feet, It rent the fleecy screen above my head;—The sweetness of the Present still seemed sweet, But with Infinity was overspread.
Again the ripple in the sedges broke, The cuckoos sent their mellow echoes round,And still that knell awoke and re-awoke, Till all was blended with its solemn sound;
All hallowed and enriched: and when at last I watched for the returning stroke in vain,Across the empty scene a chillness passed; My soul fell sighing to her bounds again.
Jan. 1857.