Something Passes

SOMETHING passes in the air,
That if seen would be most fair;
And if we the ear could train
To a keener joy and pain,
Sweeter warblings would be heard
Than from wild Arabian bird :
Something passes.

Blithest in the spring it stirs,
Wakes with earliest harbingers;
Then it peers from heart’s-ease faces,
Clothes itself in wind-flower graces ;
Or, begirt with waving sedge,
Pipes upon the river’s edge;
Or its whispering way doth take
Through the plumed and scented brake;
Or, within the silent wood,
Whirls one leaf in fitful mood.
Something knits the morning dews
In a web of seven hues;
Something with the May-fly races,
Or the pallid blowball chases
Till it darkens ’gainst the moon,
Full, upon a night of June:
Something passes.

Something climbs, from bush or croft,
On a gossamer stretched aloft ;
Sails, with glistening spars and shrouds,
Till it meets the sailing clouds ;
Else it with the swallow flies,
Glimpsed at dusk in southern skies ;
Glides before the even-star,
Steals its light, and beckons far.
Something sighs within the sigh
Of the wind, that, whirling by,
Strews the roof and flooded eaves
With the autumn’s dead-ripe leaves.
Something — still unknown to me —
Carols in the winter tree,
Or doth breathe a melting strain
Close beneath the frosted pane:
Something passes.