There is wonder on land and billow,

   And a strangeness in bough and vein,

For the brook or the budded willow

   Feel the Presence walking again.

It has come in the olden fashion,

   As the tritest of lutes have sung,

But it carries the olden passion

   That can never be aught but young.

There are whispers from groves auroral

   To blood half-afraid to hear,

While the evening star’s faint choral

   Is an ecstasy touch’d with fear.

And at night where the hill-wraiths rally

   Glows the far Walpurgis flame,

Which the lonely swain in the valley

   Beholds, tho’ he dare not name.

And in every wild breeze falling

   Out of spaces beyond the sky,

There are ancient voices calling

   To regions remote and high;

To the gardens of elfin glory

   That lie o’er the purple seas,

And mansions of dream and story

   From childhood memories.

I am call’d where the still dawns glitter

   On pastures and furrow’d crests,

And the thrush and the wood-lark twitter

   Low over their brookside nests;

Where the smoke of the cottage hovers,

   And the elm-buds promise their shade,

And a carpet of new green covers

   The floor of the forest glade.

I am call’d where the vales are dreaming

   In golden, celestial light,

With the gables of castles gleaming,

   And village roofs steep and bright;

With distant spires set slimly

   Over tangles of twining boughs,

And a ribbon of river seen dimly

   Thro’ fields that the farmer ploughs.

I am call’d where a twilight ocean

   Laps the piers of an ancient town,

And dream-ships in ghostly motion

   Ride at anchor up and down;

Where sea-lanes narrow and bending

   Climb steep thro’ the fragrant gloom

Of chimneys and gambrels blending

   With orchard branches in bloom.

And when o’er the waves enchanted

   The moon and the stars appear,

I am haunted—haunted—haunted

   By dreams of a mystic year;

Of a year long lost in the dawning,

   When the planets were vague and pale,

And the chasms of space were yawning

   To vistas that fade and fail.

I am haunted by recollections

   Of lands that were not of earth,

Of places where mad perfections

   In horror were brought to birth;

Where pylons of onyx mounted

   To heavens with fire embower’d,

And turrets and domes uncounted

   O’er the terrac’d torrents tower’d.

I am call’d to these reachless regions

   In tones that are old and known,

By a chorus of phantom legions

   That must have been once my own—

But the spell is a charm swift fleeting,

   And the earth has a potent thrall,

So I never have known the freeing,

   Or heeded the springtime’s call.