Skyfaring

Drifting through vacant spaces vast of sleep, One overtook me like a flying star And whirled me onward in his glistering car. From shade to shade the wingèd steeds did leap, And clomb the midnight like a mountain-steep; Till that vague world where men and women are, Ev'n as a rushlight down the gulfs afar, Paled and went out, upswallowed of the deep.

Then I to that ethereal charioteer: "O whither through the vastness are we bound? O bear me back to yonder blinded sphere!" Therewith I heard the ends of night resound; And, wakened by ten thousand echoes, found That far-off planet lying all-too near.