So, when for an instant my friends (and I myself) appeared like insubstantial forms whirled to and fro in the world, now jostled against each other, now carried apartthe sport of the winds and the waves, and puppets moved by the tangled threads of chance: All at once the heavens opened, and I beheld, magnificent, serene Like mountains in the morning towering over the earth, changeless, or changing only as the mountains change, [And Time and all the years were but a mist which rolled against them, Hiding, revealing, here an outline, there an outline, Here a ledge of blooming flowers, there a black and lowering crag] That other world where the Sun shines for ever, Those other Forms that move not from their place. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MY DEARLING by ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN ON THE DEATH OF MR. PURCELL by JOHN DRYDEN LAUSANNE: IN GIBBON'S OLD GARDEN by THOMAS HARDY BALLADE OF DEAD ACTORS by WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY SONGS OF TRAVEL: 44 by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON LAUS VENERIS by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE |