Hark, from within, slow and sonorous stole Deep organ-tones; with solemn pomp of sound Meet to bear up the disimprison'd soul From mortal homage in material piles, To blend with Angel Halleluiahs!--Round The charmed place the notes melodious roll As with a visible flood: adown the aisles Of Nature's first cathedrals (vistas dim, Through leafless woodlands), far and farther float On to the startled haunts of toiling men, The marching music-tides: the heavenly note Thrills through the reeking air of alleys grim; Awes wolf-eyed Guilt close skulking in its den; Lulls Childhood, wailing with white lips for bread, On the starved breast of nerveless Penury; Fever lies soothed upon its burning bed: Indignant Worth stills its world-weary sigh; The widow'd bride looks upward from the dead, And deems she hears his welcome to the sky. On, the grand music, more and more remote, Bore the grey blind man's soul, itself a hymn, Till lost in air amid the Seraphim. VI. Our life is as a circle, and our age Back to our youth returns at last in dreams; The intermediate restless pilgrimage Vexing the earth with toils, the air with schemes, Pays our hard tribute to the work-day world. That done, as some storm-shatter'd argosy Puts to the port from whence its sail unfurl'd, The soul regains the first familiar shore, And greets the quiet it disdain'd before. He who in youth from purple poetry Flush'd the grey clouds in this cold common sky, After his shadeless undelusive noon Shall mark the roseate hues, which morning wore, Herald the eve, and gird his setting sun; And the last Hesperus shine on Helicon. O long (yet nobly, since for man) resign'd Nature's most sovereign, care's most soothing boon; Again, again, with vervain fillets bind Anointed brows--O Mage supreme of song! Again before the enchanted crystal glass Let the celestial phantoms glide along-- Thou, whose sweet tears yet hallow Lycidas; Thou, who the soul of Plato didst unsphere, By chaste Sabrina's beryl-paven cell! If now no more thou deign'st to charm the ear "With measures ravish'd from Apollo's shell," Re-wake the harp which mournful willows hide Left by the captives of Jerusalem; For thou hast thought of Sion, and beside The streams of Babylon, hast wept--like them! VII. Aged, forsaken--to the crowd below (As to the Priest[F] who chronicled the time), "_One Milton!_--_The blind Teacher_"--be it so. Neglect and ruin make but more sublime The last lone column which survives the dearth Of a lost city,--when it lifts on high. Above the waste and solitude of earth Its front: and soars, the Neighbour of the Sky.