IS IT this sky's vast vault or ocean's sound That is Life's self and draws my life from me, And by instinct ineffable decree Holds my breath quailing on the bitter bound? Nay, is it Life or Death, thus thunder-crown'd, That 'mid the tide of all emergency Now notes my separate wave, and to what sea Its difficult eddies labour in the ground? Oh! what is this that knows the road I came, The flame turned cloud, the cloud returned to flame, The lifted shifted steeps and all the way?-- That draws round me at last this wind-warm space, And in regenerate rapture turns my face Upon the devious coverts of dismay? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS THE HIGH TIDE AT [OR, ON THE COAST OF] LINCOLNSHIRE by JEAN INGELOW PERFECT WOMAN by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH SERVICE by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH FROM A PRAIRIE by BEATRICE BRISSMAN LINES WRITTEN ON WINDOWS OF THE GLOBE INN, DUMFRIES by ROBERT BURNS WASHINGTON by HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH |