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Sickens, and is aghast!

Darkness reveals

The tragic truth; her will sinks hopeless wings

Before the inexorable Fact of things,

Humbling the dread she feels.

With the old Awes

Confronted and the flaming Mystery,

She may not speak; but pondering, suddenly

Grows silent, and withdraws.

She may not bear

That sight: the spangled heavens, from east to west,

Stretch out too wide the confines of the breast,

Straining in wonder there.

Upon what Brow

Of awful eminence—O thought that stuns!—

Is laid that chaplet of a million suns,

Upon what Forehead now?

Who was it wrought

This universal glory all around,

Of glittering worlds forever without bound?—

Great Poet, what a Thought!

It is a Word

Unutterable that is written there;

The spirit, gazing, is one voiceless prayer,

Careless if it be heard.

Her thoughts ascend,

Star beyond star, height beyond aching height

Upward, in adoration infinite,

Forever, without end.

So shall it be!

Till heaven yield her sceptre; till the throne

Of night be shaken, and the Face be known