Of this he perishes; not she, the throned
     On rocks that spout their springs to the sacred mounts. 
     A loftier Reason out of deeper founts
     Earth’s chosen Goddess bears:  by none disowned
     While red blood runs to swell the pulse, she boasts,
     And Beauty, like her star, descends the sky;
     Earth’s answer, heaven’s consent unto man’s cry,
     Uplifted by the innumerable hosts.

     Quickened of Nature’s eye and ear,
     When the wild sap at high tide smites
     Within us; or benignly clear
     To vision; or as the iris lights
     On fluctuant waters; she is ours
     Till set of man:  the dreamed, the seen;
     Flushing the world with odorous flowers: 
     A soft compulsion on terrene
     By heavenly:  and the world is hers
     While hunger after Beauty spurs.

     So is it sung in any space
     She fills, with laugh at shallow laws
     Forbidding love’s devised embrace,
     The music Beauty from it draws.

     A reading of life—­the test of manhood

     Like a flood river whirled at rocky banks,
     An army issues out of wilderness,
     With battle plucking round its ragged flanks;
     Obstruction in the van; insane excess
     Oft at the heart; yet hard the onward stress
     Unto more spacious, where move ordered ranks,
     And rise hushed temples built of shapely stone,
     The work of hands not pledged to grind or slay. 
     They gave our earth a dress of flesh on bone;
     A tongue to speak with answering heaven gave they. 
     Then was the gracious birth of man’s new day;
     Divided from the haunted night it shone.

     That quiet dawn was Reverence; whereof sprang
     Ethereal Beauty in full morningtide. 
     Another sun had risen to clasp his bride: 
     It was another earth unto him sang.

     Came Reverence from the Huntress on her heights? 
     From the Persuader came it, in those vales
     Whereunto she melodiously invites,
     Her troops of eager servitors regales? 
     Not far those two great Powers of Nature speed
     Disciple steps on earth when sole they lead;
     Nor either points for us the way of flame. 
     From him predestined mightier it came;
     His task to hold them both in breast, and yield
     Their dues to each, and of their war be field.

     The foes that in repulsion never ceased,
     Must he, who once has been the goodly beast
     Of one or other, at whose beck he ran,
     Constrain to make him serviceable man;
     Offending neither, nor the natural claim
     Each pressed, denying, for his true man’s name.