CLXI.

   Or view the Lord of the unerring bow,
   The God of life, and poesy, and light —
   The Sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow
   All radiant from his triumph in the fight;
   The shaft hath just been shot—­the arrow bright
   With an immortal’s vengeance; in his eye
   And nostril beautiful disdain, and might
   And majesty, flash their full lightnings by,
Developing in that one glance the Deity.

CLXII.

   But in his delicate form—­a dream of Love,
   Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast
   Longed for a deathless lover from above,
   And maddened in that vision—­are expressed
   All that ideal beauty ever blessed
   The mind within its most unearthly mood,
   When each conception was a heavenly guest —
   A ray of immortality—­and stood
Starlike, around, until they gathered to a god?

CLXIII.

   And if it be Prometheus stole from heaven
   The fire which we endure, it was repaid
   By him to whom the energy was given
   Which this poetic marble hath arrayed
   With an eternal glory—­which, if made
   By human hands, is not of human thought
   And Time himself hath hallowed it, nor laid
   One ringlet in the dust—­nor hath it caught
A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which ’twas wrought.

CLXIV.

   But where is he, the pilgrim of my song,
   The being who upheld it through the past? 
   Methinks he cometh late and tarries long. 
   He is no more—­these breathings are his last;
   His wanderings done, his visions ebbing fast,
   And he himself as nothing:  —­if he was
   Aught but a phantasy, and could be classed
   With forms which live and suffer—­let that pass —
His shadow fades away into Destruction’s mass,

CLXV.

   Which gathers shadow, substance, life, and all
   That we inherit in its mortal shroud,
   And spreads the dim and universal pall
   Thro’ which all things grow phantoms; and the cloud
   Between us sinks and all which ever glowed,
   Till Glory’s self is twilight, and displays
   A melancholy halo scarce allowed
   To hover on the verge of darkness; rays
Sadder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze,

CLXVI.

   And send us prying into the abyss,
   To gather what we shall be when the frame
   Shall be resolved to something less than this
   Its wretched essence; and to dream of fame,
   And wipe the dust from off the idle name
   We never more shall hear,—­but never more,
   Oh, happier thought! can we be made the same: 
   It is enough, in sooth, that once we bore
These fardels of the heart—­the heart whose sweat was gore.