Classic Poem

O when we sit where all is still,
Where speaks no tongue, and where is heard
No water-stream down rock or rill,
Where come no steps, where flies no bird—
We often find, as I have found,
The very stillness seem a sound;
As we all dumb hear voices come—
And whence? From stillness or the wind?

When so we sit alone at rest,
We rove in thought where'er we will,
Beholding fairest souls all blest
With all life's good, without its ill;
And hardly feel that what we view
Is all a trance and is not true,
And that we hear no voices near,
But only stillness or the wind.

We hear some name while no one calls,
And words, where not a tongue is nigh;
And steps, where not a footstep falls;
And whirling leaves with none to fly;
And dear old songs where no one sings,
And birds in flight where flap no wings,
And bells outrung where none is hung;
We hear but stillness or the wind.

When weary of the noise around
Our ears, we haply somewhere find
That charming seemingness of sound,
To cheat and soothe the troubled mind,
As being where we cannot be,
And seeing what we cannot see,
We meet with naught to thwart our thought,
But deadly stillness or the wind.