'"Time's clouds roll back, and memory's light Bursts suddenly upon my sight; For thoughts, which words could never tell, Find utterance in that funeral bell. My heart, this eve, seemed full of feeling, Yet nothing clear to me revealing; Sounding in breathings undefined Æolian music to my mind: Then strikes that bell, and all subsides Into a harmony, which glides As sweet and solemn as the dream Of a remembered funeral hymn. This scene seemed like the magic glass, Which bore upon its clouded face Strange shadows that deceived the eye With forms defined uncertainly; That Bell is old Agrippa's wand, Which parts the clouds on either hand, And shows the pictured forms of doom Momently brightening through the gloom: Yes--shows a scene of bygone years-- Opens a fount of sealed-up tears-- And wakens memory's pensive thought To visions sleeping--not forgot. It brings me back a summer's day, Shedding like this its parting ray, With skies as shining and serene, And hills as blue, and groves as green. '"Ah, well I recollect that hour, When I sat, gazing, just as now, Toward that ivy-mantled tower Among these flowers which wave below! No--not these flowers--they're long since dead, And flowers have budded, bloomed, and gone, Since those were plucked which gird the head Laid underneath yon churchyard stone! I stooped to pluck a rose that grew Beside this window, waving then; But back my little hand withdrew, From some reproof of inward pain; For _she who loved it_ was not there To check me with her dove-like eye, And something bid my heart forbear _Her_ favourite rosebud to destroy. Was it that bell--that funeral bell, Sullenly sounding on the wind? Was it that melancholy knell Which first to sorrow woke my mind? I looked upon my mourning dress Till my heart beat with childish fear, And--frightened at my loneliness-- I watched, some well-known sound to hear. But all without lay silent in The sunny hush of afternoon, And only muffled steps within Passed slowly and sedately on. I well can recollect the awe With which I hastened to depart; And, as I ran, the instinctive start With which my mother's form I saw, Arrayed in black, with pallid face, And cheeks and 'kerchief wet with tears, As down she stooped to kiss my face And quiet my uncertain fears.