[Composed, probably, in Switzerland, in the summer of 1816.  Published in Hunt’s “Examiner”, January 19, 1817, and with “Rosalind and Helen”, 1819.]

1. 
The awful shadow of some unseen Power
Floats though unseen among us,—­visiting
This various world with as inconstant wing
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower,—­
Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, 5
It visits with inconstant glance
Each human heart and countenance;
Like hues and harmonies of evening,—­
Like clouds in starlight widely spread,—­
Like memory of music fled,—­ 10
Like aught that for its grace may be
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.

2. 
Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate
With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon
Of human thought or form,—­where art thou gone? 15
Why dost thou pass away and leave our state,
This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? 
Ask why the sunlight not for ever
Weaves rainbows o’er yon mountain-river,
Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown, 20
Why fear and dream and death and birth
Cast on the daylight of this earth
Such gloom,—­why man has such a scope
For love and hate, despondency and hope?

3. 
No voice from some sublimer world hath ever 25
To sage or poet these responses given—­
Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven. 
Remain the records of their vain endeavour,
Frail spells—­whose uttered charm might not avail to sever,
From all we hear and all we see, 30
Doubt, chance, and mutability. 
Thy light alone—­like mist o’er mountains driven,
Or music by the night-wind sent
Through strings of some still instrument,
Or moonlight on a midnight stream, 35
Gives grace and truth to life’s unquiet dream.

4. 
Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart
And come, for some uncertain moments lent. 
Man were immortal, and omnipotent,
Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, 40
Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. 
Thou messenger of sympathies,
That wax and wane in lovers’ eyes—­
Thou—­that to human thought art nourishment,
Like darkness to a dying flame! 45
Depart not as thy shadow came
Depart not—­lest the grave should be,
Like life and fear, a dark reality.

5. 
While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped
Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, 50
And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. 
I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed;