Canto LXVIII

I cannot see the features right,

      When on the gloom I strive to paint

      The face I know; the hues are faint

And mix with hollow masks of night:

Cloud-towers by ghostly masons wrought,

      A gulf that ever shuts and gapes,

      A hand that points, and palled shapes

In shadowy thoroughfares of thought;

And crowds that stream from yawning doors,

      And shoals of pucker'd faces drive;

      Dark bulks that tumble half alive,

And lazy lengths on boundless shores:

Till all at once beyond the will

      I hear a wizard music roll,

      And thro' a lattice on the soul

Looks thy fair face and makes it still.