I Feel a Change

I feel a change, — and yet I know not how
Or where or when, or what it doth betoken;
But sure I am that voices which have spoken
Daily within my soul are speechless now.
For thought or fancy, hope, joy, smile and tear,
My being is not what it was last year.
And a new power, which will not yet reveal
Its name and purpose, hath already gone
This way or that, as though it fain would steal
And climb unchallenged to some inward throne:
While I with fretful guess go sounding on
Depth after depth of my vexed mind, to dodge,
The bold, unbidden stranger, and dislodge
All influence, unmeasured and unknown.