 | Through the Gateway |  |
24
A SLEEPING CITY.
The silence of a sleeping city fillsThe hungering soul more than the jar and feud
And noonday noises of the multitude.
It hath a mystic kinship with the hills,
With torrents thundering in lonely ghylls,
With shoreless seas, and awful solitude
Of deserts, where are giant statues hewed
By hands unknown for old despotic wills.
Man's soul is vaster than man's senses. Lo,
Where eye and ear find nothing, avenues
More secret open; and by ways untrod
The stealing thoughts come, silent as the flow
Of inland tides, and tranquilly infuse
Our muddy shallows with fresh streams from God.
| Through the Gateway | |