He towered among the Muses in the dusk,
And then, as though he, too, were carved in stone,
And all their voices breathed through his own voice,
“Fear nothing now,” he said. “Our foes can steal
The burdens we lay down, but nothing more.
All that we are we keep. They strike at shadows
And cannot hurt us. Little as we may know,
We have learned at least to know the abiding Power
From these poor masks of clay. This dust, this flesh,
All that we see and touch, are shadows of it,