Antinomies On A Railway Station

As I stand waiting in the rain         For the foggy hoot of the London train,         Gazing at silent wall and lamp         And post and rail and platform damp,         What is this power that comes to my sight         That I see a night without the night,         That I see them clear, yet look them through,         The silvery things and the darkly blue,         That the solid wall seems soft as death,         A wavering and unanchored wraith,         And rails that shine and stones that stream         Unsubstantial as a dream?         What sudden door has opened so,         What hand has passed, that I should know         This moving vision not a trance         That melts the globe of circumstance,         This sight that marks not least or most         And makes a stone a passing ghost?         Is it that a year ago         I stood upon this self-same spot;         Is it that since a year ago         The place and I have altered not;         Is it that I half forgot,         A year ago, and all despised         For a space the things that I had prized:         The race of life, the glittering show?         Is it that now a year has passed         In vain pursuit of glittering things,         In fruitless searching, shouting, running,         And greedy lies and candour cunning,         Here as I stand the year above         Sudden the heats and the strivings fail         And fall away, a fluctuant veil,         And the fixed familiar stones restore         The old appearance-buried core,         The unmoving and essential me,         The eternal personality         Alone enduring first and last?         No, this I have known in other ways,         In other places, other days.         Not only here, on this one peak,         Do fixity and beauty speak         Of the delusiveness of change,         Of the transparency of form,         The bootless stress of minds that range,         The awful calm behind the storm.         In many places, many days,         The invaded soul receives the rays         Of countries she was nurtured in,         Speaks in her silent language strange         To that beyond which is her kin.         Even in peopled streets at times         A metaphysic arm is thrust         Through the partitioning fabric thin,         And tears away the darkening pall         Cast by the bright phenomenal,         And clears the obscurd spirit's mirror         From shadows of deceptive error,         And shows the bells and all their ringing,         And all the crowds and all their singing,         Carillons that are nothing's chimes         And dust that is not even dust....         But rarely hold I converse thus         Where shapes are bright and clamorous,         More often comes the word divine         In places motionless and far;         Beneath the white peculiar shine         Of sunless summer afternoons;         At eventide on pale lagoons         Where hangs reflected one pale star;         Or deep in the green solitudes         Of still erect entrancd woods.         O, in the woods alone lying,         Scarce a bough in the wind sighing,         Gaze I long with fervid power         At leaf and branch and grass and flower,         Breathe I breaths of trembling sight         Shed from great urns of green delight,         Take I draughts and drink them up         Poured from many a stalk and cup.         Now do I burn for nothing more         Than thus to gaze, thus to adore         This exquisiteness of nature ever         In silence....                         But with instant light         Rends the film; with joy I quiver         To see with new celestial sight         Flower and leaf and grass and tree,         Doomed barks on an eternal sea,         Flit phantom-like as transient smoke.         Beauty herself her spell has broke,         Beauty, the herald and the lure,         Her message told, may not endure;         Her portal opened, she has died,         Supreme immortal suicide.         Yes, sleepless nature soundless flings         Invisible grapples round the soul,         Drawing her through the web of things         To the primal end of her journeyings,         Her ultimate and constant pole.         For Beauty with her hands that beckon         Is but the Prophet of a Higher,         A flaming and ephemeral beacon,         A Phoenix perishing by fire.         Herself from us herself estranges,         Herself her mighty tale doth kill,         That all things change yet nothing changes.         That all things move yet all are still.         I cannot sink, I cannot climb,         Now that I see my ancient dwelling,         The central orb untouched of time,         And taste a peace all bliss excelling.         Now I have broken Beauty's wall,         Now that my kindred world I hold,         I care not though the cities fall         And the green earth go cold.