In sight?  Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man’s birth,
  Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I;
And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth. 
  As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky: 
Novel splendours burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine. 
  Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star; 30
Meteor-moons, balls of blaze:  and they did not pale nor pine,
  For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far.

Nay more; for there wanted not who walked, in the glare and glow,
  Presences plain in the place; or, fresh, from the Protoplast,
Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow,
  Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at last: 
Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed thro’ the body and gone,
  But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new: 
What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall be anon;
  And what is,—­shall I say, matched both? for I was made perfect too. 40

All thro’ my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul,
  All thro’ my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth,
All thro’ music and me!  For think, had I painted the whole,
  Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth: 
Had I written the same, made verse—­still, effect proceeds from cause,
  Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told;
It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws,
  Painter and poet are proud, in the artist-list enrolled:—­

But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,
  Existent behind all laws, that made them, and, lo, they are! 50
And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,
  That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star. 
Consider it well:  each tone of our scale in itself is naught;
  It is everywhere in the world—­loud, soft, and all is said: 
Give it to me to use!  I mix it with two in my thought,
  And, there!  Ye have heard and seen; consider and bow the head!

Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared;
  Gone! and the good tears start, the praises that come too slow;
For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he feared,
  That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go. 60
Never to be again!  But many more of the kind
  As good, nay, better perchance:  is this your comfort to me? 
To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind
  To the same, same self, same love, same God:  ay, what was, shall be.