Dim vales--and shadowy floods--

And cloudy-looking woods,

Whose forms we can't discover

For the tears that drip all over.

Huge moons there wax and wane--

Again--again--again--

Every moment of the night

Forever changing places--

And they put out the star-light

With the breath from their pale faces.

About twelve by the moon-dial

One more filmy than the rest

(A kind which, upon trial,

They have found to be the best)

Comes down--still down--and down

Of a mountain's eminence,

While its wide circumference

In easy drapery falls,

Over hamlets, over halls,

Wherever they may be--

O'er the strange woods--o'er the sea--

Over spirits on the wing

Over every drowsy thing--

And buries them up quite

In a labyrinth of light--

And then, how deep!--Oh, deep!

Is the passion of their sleep.

In the morning they arise,

And their moony covering

Is soaring in the skies

With the tempests as they toss,

Like--almost any thing--

Or a yellow Albatross.

They use that moon no more

For the same end as before--

Videlicet a tent

Which I think extravagant:

Its atomies, however,

Into a shower dissever,

Of which those butterflies,

Or earth, who seek the skies,

And so come down again

(Never-contented things!)

Have brought a specimen

Upon their quavering wings.