And she, that lighted form of blue and gold,
     Whom the seas gave, all earth, all earth embraced;
     Exulting in the great hauls of her mesh;
     Desired and hated, desperately dear;
     Most human of them was.  No more pursue! 
     Enough that the black story can be told. 
     It preaches to the eminently placed: 
     For whom disastrous wreckage is nigh due,
     Paints omen.  Truly they our throbber had;
     The passions plumping, passions playing leech,
     Cunning to trick us for the day’s good cheer. 
     Our uncorrected human heart will swell
     To notions monstrous, doings mad
     As billows on a foam-lashed beach;
     Borne on the tides of alternating heats,
     Will drug the brain, will doom the soul as well;
     Call the closed mouth of that harsh final Power
     To speak in judgement:  Nemesis, the fell: 
     Of those bright Gods assembled, offspring sour;
     The last surviving on the upper seats;
     As with men Reason when their hearts rebel.

     Ah, what a fruitless breeder is this heart,
     Full of the mingled seeds, each eating each. 
     Not wiser of our mark than at the start,
     It surges like the wrath-faced father Sea
     To countering winds; a force blind-eyed,
     On endless rounds of aimless reach;
     Emotion for the source of pride,
     The grounds of faith in fixity
     Above our flesh; its cravings urging speech,
     Inspiring prayer; by turns a lump
     Swung on a time-piece, and by turns
     A quivering energy to jump
     For seats angelical:  it shrinks, it yearns,
     Loves, loathes; is flame or cinders; lastly cloud
     Capping a sullen crater:  and mankind
     We see cloud-capped, an army of the dark,
     Because of thy straight leadership declined;
     At heels of this or that delusive spark: 
     Now when the multitudinous races press
     Elbow to elbow hourly more,
     A thickened host; when now we hear aloud
     Life for the very life implore
     A signal of a visioned mark;
     Light of the mind, the mind’s discourse,
     The rational in graciousness,
     Thee by acknowledgement enthroned,
     To tame and lead that blind-eyed force
     In harmony of harness with the crowd,
     For payment of their dues; as yet disowned,
     Save where some dutiful lone creature, vowed
     To holy work, deems it the heart’s intent;
     Or where a silken circle views it cowled,
     The seeming figure of concordance, bent
     On satiating tyrant lust
     Or barren fits of sentiment.

     Thou wilt not have our paths befouled
     By simulation; are we vile to view,
     The heavens shall see us clean of our own dust,
     Beneath thy breezy flitting wing: 
     They make their mirror upon faces true;
     And where they win reflection,