Darkness surrounds me with its phantom hosts...

By Anne Whitney

Darkness surrounds me with its phantom hosts,
Till silence is enchanted speech. I feel
Those half-spent airs that through the laurel reel,
And Night's loud heart-beats in the tropic coasts, --
And, soaring amid everlasting frosts,
To super-sensual rest, as it might outweigh
A whole world's strife, o'er me gaunt Himaleh
Droops his broad wing of calm. -- Those peaks, ghosts
Outstaring Time, through darkness glimmering!
No rush of pinion there, nor bubbling low --
But death, and silence past imagining; --
Only, day in and out, with endless swing,
Their aged shadows move, and picture slow
One on another's unrelenting snow.