Mingled with the fortune-telling Gipsy-bands of dreams and fancies, Of the silent land of trances All else seemed asleep in Bruges, And I thought how like these chimes Are the poet's airy rhymes, All his rhymes and roundelays, His conceits, and songs, and ditties, From the belfry of his brain, Scattered downward, though in vain, On the roofs and stones of cities! For by night the drowsy ear Under its curtains cannot hear, And by day men go their ways, Yet perchance a sleepless wight, Of daylight and its toil and strife, Till he hears, or dreams he hears, Intermingled with the song, Thoughts that he has cherished long; And wakes, and finds his slumberous eyes Wet with most delicious tears. Thus dreamed I, as by night I lay Listening with a wild delight To the chimes that, through the night, |