Poem by William Wordsworth

Inside of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge: The Same

WHAT awful pérspective! while from our sight
With gradual stealth the lateral windows hide
Their portraitures, their stone-work glimmers, dyed
In the soft checkerings of a sleepy light.
Martyr, or king, or sainted Eremite,
Whoe’er ye be, that thus, yourselves unseen,
Imbue your prison-bars with solemn sheen,
Shine on, until ye fade with coining night!—
But, from the arms of silence,—list! O, list!—
The music bursteth into second life;
The notes luxuriate, every stone is kissed
By sound, or ghost of sound, in mazy strife;
Heart-thrilling strains, that cast, before the eye
Of the devout, a veil of ecstasy!

1. Monastery of Old Bangor
2. Processions
3. On Revisiting Dunolly Castle
4. For the Spot Where the Hermitage Stood on St. Herbert’s Island, Derwent Water
5. Roman Antiquities

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