Sable-vested Night, Eldest Of Things.

Oft, On A Plat Of Rising Ground, I Hear The Far-off Curfew Sound Over Some Wide-watered Shore, Swinging Low With Sullen Roar.

Daughter To That Good Earl, Once President Of England's Council, And Her Treasury, Who Lived In Both, Unstained With Gold Or Fee, And Left Them Both, More In Himself Content, Till Sad The Breaking Of That Parliament Broke Him, As That Dishonest Victory At Chaeronea, Fatal To Liberty, Killed With Report That Old Man Eloquent. Though Later Born Than To Have Known The Days Wherein Your Father Flourished, Yet By You, Madam, Methinks I See Him Living Yet; So Well Your Words His Noble Virtues Praise, That All Both Judge You To Relate Them True, And To Possess Them, Honoured Margaret.

From Man Or Angel The Great Architect Did Wisely To Conceal, And Not Divulge, His Secrets, To Be Scanned By Them Who Ought Rather Admire. Or, If They List To Try Conjecture, He His Fabric Of The Heavens Hath Left To Their Disputes - Perhaps To Move His Laughter At Their Quaint Opinions Wide Hereafter, When They Come To Model Heaven And Calculate The Stars: How They Will Wield The Mighty Frame: How Build, Unbuild, Contrive To Save Appearances; How Gird The Sphere With Centric And Eccentric Scribbled O'er, Cycle And Epicycle, Orb In Orb.

Thus With The Year Seasons Return; But Not To Me Returns Day, Or The Sweet Approach Of Even Or Morn, Or Sight Of Vernal Bloom Or Summer's Rose, Or Flocks, Or Herds, Or Human Face Divine; But Cloud Instead, And Ever-during Dark Surrounds Me; From The Cheerful Ways Of Men Cut Off, And For The Book Of Knowledge Fair Presented With A Universal Blank Of Nature's Works, To Me Expung'd And Raz'd, And Wisdom At One Entrance Quite Shut Out.

Avenge, O Lord, Thy Slaughtered Saints, Whose Bones Lie Scattered On The Alpine Mountains Cold; Ev'n Them Who Kept Thy Truth So Pure Of Old When All Our Fathers Worshipped Stocks And Stones Forget Not.