The Two Spirits
First Spirit
O THOU, who plumed with strong desireWouldst float above the earth, beware!A shadow tracks the flight of fire—Night is coming!Bright are the regions of the air,And among the winds and beamsIt were delight to wander there—Night is coming!
Second Spirit
The deathless stars are bright above;If I would cross the shade of night,Within my heart is the lamp of love,And that is day!And the moon will smile with gentle lightOn my golden plumes where’er they move;The meteors will linger round my flight,And make night day.
First Spirit
But if the whirlwinds of darkness wakenHail, and lightning, and stormy rain;See, the bounds of the air are shaken—Night is coming!The red swift clouds of the hurricaneYon declining sun have overtaken;The clash of the hail sweeps over the plain—Night is coming!
Second Spirit
I see the light, and I hear the sound;I’ll sail on the flood of the tempests dark,With the calm within and the light aroundWhich makes night day:And then, when the gloom is deep and stark,Look from thy dull earth, slumber-bound;My moon-like flight thou then may’st markOn high, far away.
Some say there is a precipiceWhere one vast pine is frozen to ruinO’er piles of snow and chasms of ice’Mid Alpine mountains;And that the languid storm pursuingThat winged shape, for ever fliesRound those hoar branches, aye renewingIts aëry fountains.
Some say, when nights are dry and clear,And the death-dews sleep on the morass,Sweet whispers are heard by the traveller,Which make night day;And a silver shape, like his early love, doth passUp-borne by her wild and glittering hair,And when he awakes on the fragrant grass,He finds night day.
JOHN KEATS 1795–1821