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.