He comes with western winds, with evening's wandering airs, 
With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars; 
Winds take a pensive tone and stars a tender fire 
And visions rise and change which kill me with desire -

Desire for nothing known in my maturer years
When joy grew mad with awe, at counting future tears;
When, if my spirit's sky was fall of flashes warm,
I knew not whence they came from sun or thunder storm;

But first a hush of peace, a soundless calm descends;
The struggle of distress and fierce impatience ends
Mute music sooths my breast - unuttered harmony
That I could never dream till earth was lost to me.

Then dawns the Invisible; the Unseen its truth reveals;
My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels - 
Its wings are almost free, its home, its harbour found;
Measuring the gulf, it stoops and dares the final bound - 

0, dreadful is the check - intense the agony
When the ear begins to hear and the eye begins to see;
When the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again,
The soul to feel the flesh and the flesh to feel the chain.

Yet I would lose no sting, would wish no torture less;
The more that anguish racks the earlier it will bless;
And robed in fires of Hell, or bright with heavenly shine
If it but herald Death, the vision is divine -