Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

COME DOWN, YE SPIRITS by WILLIAM MOTHERWELL

Poet Analysis

First Line: COME DOWN, YE SPIRITS! IN YOUR MIGHT, COME DOWN!
Last Line: ITS FEEBLE ECHOES TO YOUR MIGHTY SONG.
COME down, ye Spirits! in your might, come down!
Come down, ye Spirits of this midnight hour;
Come down in all your dim sublimity
And majesty of terror! How I joy
To meet you in your own dark territories,
And hold mysterious converse in a tongue
That hath quite perished among the sons
Of fallen man! Ye Spirits that do roam
With unconfined footsteps o'er the paths
Of measureless eternity; -- ye who skim
The bosomed cloud, or pace with hasty step
The earth's green surface, and its every spot,
Though ne'er so lone, deserted, and profound;
Repeople with strange sounds and voices sweet,
Which circle round, even when all else is still,
And breed in vulgar breasts a nameless dread
And awe inexplicable; which bids the flesh
To creep, as if its every fibre were
A many-footed and a living thing,
Come down! come down!
I hear ye come! I hear your sounding wings
Beat the impassive air with mighty strokes,
And in the flickering moonshine I can see
Your shadowy limbs, descending like a mist
Of fleecy whiteness, on the slumbering earth.
And now I hear the mingled harmonies
Of all your voices, fill the vaulted sky.
Ye call upon me -- and my soul is glad
To meet you on your pilgrimage, and join
Its feeble echoes to your mighty song.



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