In the grey tumult of these after years
Oft silence falls; the incessant wranglers part;
And less-than-echoes
of remembered tears
Hush all the loud confusion of the heart;
And a shade, through the toss'd ranks of
mirth and crying
Hungers, and pains, and each dull passionate mood, --
Quite lost, and all but all forgot,
undying,
Comes back the ecstasy of your quietude.
So a poor ghost, beside his misty streams,
Is haunted by strange doubts, evasive dreams,
Hints of a pre-
Lethean life, of men,
Stars, rocks, and flesh, things unintelligible,
And light on waving grass, he knows not
when,
And feet that ran, but where, he cannot tell.