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The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales

 

The Mystic Angels have talked with him, and showed him thrones: Ye knew him not: he was not one of ye, Ye scorned him with an undiscerning scorn: Ye could not read the marvel in his eye, The still serene abstraction; he hath felt The vanities of after and before; Albeit, his spirit and his secret heart The stern experiences of converse lives, The linkèd woes of many a fiery change Had purified, and chastened, and made free. Always there stood before him, night and day, Of wayward vary coloured circumstance, The imperishable presences serene, Colossal, without form, or sense, or sound, Dim shadows but unwaning presences Fourfacèd to four corners of the sky; And yet again, three shadows, fronting one, One forward, one respectant, three but one; And yet again, again and evermore, For the two first were not, but only seemed One shadow in the midst of a great light, One reflex from eternity on time, One mighty countenance of perfect calm, Awful with most invariable eyes. For him the silent congregated hours, Daughters of time, divinely tall, beneath Severe and youthful brows, with shining eyes Smiling a godlike smile (the innocent light Of earliest youth pierced through and through with all Keen knowledges of low-embowèd eld) Upheld, and ever hold aloft the cloud Which droops low hung on either gate of life, Both birth and death; he in the centre fixed, Saw far on each side through the grated gates Most pale and clear and lovely distances. He often lying broad awake, and yet Remaining from the body, and apart In intellect and power and will, hath heard Time flowing in the middle of the night, And all things creeping to a day of doom. How could ye know him? Ye were yet within The narrower circle; he had well nigh reached The last, with which a region of white flame, Pure without heat, into a larger air Upburning, and an ether of black hue, Investeth and ingirds all other lives.

Poems Chiefly Lyrical

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Alfred Lord Tennyson: I

  • Alfred Lord Tennyson: I

TrendingHere are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.

Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs?

The Twelve Dancing Princesses

Current Events This Week: January 2023

African Americans by the Numbers

Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents

The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales

TrendingHere are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.

Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs?

The Twelve Dancing Princesses

Current Events This Week: January 2023

African Americans by the Numbers

Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents

The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales

  • Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs?
  • The Twelve Dancing Princesses
  • Current Events This Week: January 2023
  • African Americans by the Numbers
  • Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents
  • The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales