II.
Aye fashioned from the mirror of the soul
That lends its shadow to this fleeting world,
How doth thy beauty in itself control
The spirit and the form wherein ’tis whirled;
In others earth beneath the inward fire
Sinks down, abashed, nor knows to bear the fame,
While some more mean exalt the entrancing mire,
Smothering the sparkles of celestial flame;
Yet either wanting, for, with those of earth,
Earth’s purer mixture hallows what it lends,
And easier leads the sons of self-same birth
To fathom beauty in its heavenlier ends:
’Tis fit Nature should find a lovely hearse,
When man by death springs from the Universe.
III.
If there be some true meaning and a sign
In all the altars where sad suppliants pray,
And if the words they sometime subtly twine,
Be not unpregnant of a deeper lay,
What depths of mystery might not then be read,
What gages of new hope lie undiscerned,
In all the purpose that thy beauties wed,
And all the thought in glowing shrine inurned,
In the unfathomable music, weaving
The young glad utterance of unconscious vows,
And in the eloquence, quickening and relieving,
Like sunset lingering round becalmèd prows;
The heaven that wooes, now flashes, from that eye
Hath stol’n Jove’s lightning and his joys from high.
IV.
Fain would I speak of all thy hopes disclose,
My pen, charm’d with delights, scarce will steal on,
Lingering about the rapture which it knows
It dallies coyly with an idle song;
Too long the prospect which mine eye surveys,
How shall I mark each flower or stay to cull?
Through light, through shade, Perfection planes the ways
With sweet variety, that grows not dull;
Each new enchantment seems itself so fair,
That the last pride spoils his ancestor’s aims:
So justly tempered all, none can impair
Concent’ring beauty’s just imperial claims;
Each borrows new delight while it conveys,
And leads to harmony by various ways.