And cram him with the fragments of the grave, Or in the dark dissolving human heart, And holy secrets of this microcosm, Dabbling a shameless hand with shameful jest, Encarnalize their spirits: yet we know Knowledge is knowledge, and this matter hangs : Nor willing men should come among us, learnt, For many weary moons before we came, This craft of healing. Were you sick, ourselves Would tend upon you. To your question now, Which touches on the workman and his work. Let there be light, and there was light: 't is so: For was, and is, and will be, are but is ; And all creation is one act at once, The birth of light: but we that are not all, s parts, can see but parts, now this, now that, And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and make One act a phantom of succession: thus Our weakness somehow shapes the shadow, Time; But in the shadow will we work, and mould The woman to the fuller day.' She spake With kindled eyes: we rode a little higher To cross the flood by a narrow bridge, and came On flowery levels underneath the crag, Full of all beauty; and 'O how sweet,' I said, (For I was half-oblivious of my mask) 'To linger here with one that loved us.' 'Yea,' She answer'd,' or with fair philosophies That lift the fancy; for indeed these fields Are lovely, lovelier not the Elysian lawns, Where paced the Demigods of old, and saw Lay out the viands.' At the word, they raised A tent of satin, elaborately wrought With fair Corinna's triumph; here she stood, The woman-conqueror; woman-conquer'd there The bearded Victor of ten-thousand hymns, And all the men mourn'd at his side: but we Set forth to climb; then, climbing, Cyril kept With Psyche, Florian with the other, and I With mine affianced. Many a little hand Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks, Many a light foot shone like a jewel set In the dark crag; and then we turn'd, we wound About the cliffs, the copses, out and in, Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff, Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the Sun Grew broader toward his death and fell, and all The rosy heights came out above the lawns. IV. "THERE sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun, If that hypothesis of theirs be sound,' Said Ida; 'let us down and rest:' and we Stirring a sudden transport, rose and fell. But when we planted level feet, and dipt Beneath the satin dome and enter'd in, There leaning deep in broider'd down we sank 70 A fragrant flame rose, and before us glow'd Fruit, viand, blossom, and amber wine and gold. Then she, 'Let some one sing to us: lightlier move The minutes fledged with music :') and a maid, Of those beside her, smote her harp, and sang: い Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, 66 Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. "Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns |