HEAVEN AND HELL
’Tis said there were no thought of hell,
Save hell were taught; that there should be
A Heaven for all’s self-credible.
Not so the thing appears to me.
’Tis Heaven that lies beyond our sights,
And hell too possible that proves;
For all can feel the God that smites,
But ah, how few the God that loves!
TO A CHILD
Whenas my life shall time with funeral tread
The heavy death-drum of the beaten hours,
Following, sole mourner, mine own manhood dead,
Poor forgot corse, where not a maid strows flowers;
When I you love am no more I you love,
But go with unsubservient feet, behold
Your dear face through changed eyes, all grim change prove;—
A new man, mockèd with misname of old;
When shamed Love keep his ruined lodging, elf!
When, ceremented in mouldering memory,
Myself is hearsèd underneath myself,
And I am but the monument of me:—
O to that tomb be tender then, which bears
Only the name of him it sepulchres!
HERMES
Soothsay. Behold, with rod twy-serpented,
Hermes the prophet, twining in one power
The woman with the man. Upon his head
The cloudy cap, wherewith he hath in dower
The cloud’s own virtue—change and counterchange,
To show in light, and to withdraw in pall,
As mortal eyes best bear. His lineage strange
From Zeus, Truth’s sire, and maiden May—the all-
Illusive Nature. His fledged feet declare
That ’tis the nether self transdeified,
And the thrice-furnaced passions, which do bear
The poet Olympusward. In him allied
Both parents clasp; and from the womb of Nature
Stern Truth takes flesh in shows of lovely feature.
HOUSE OF BONDAGE
I
When I perceive Love’s heavenly reaping still
Regard perforce the clouds’ vicissitude,
That the fixed spirit loves not when it will,
But craves its seasons of the flawful blood;
When I perceive that the high poet doth
Oft voiceless stray beneath the uninfluent stars,
That even Urania of her kiss is loath,
And Song’s brave wings fret on their sensual bars;
When I perceived the fullest-sailèd sprite
Lag at most need upon the lethèd seas,
The provident captainship oft voided quite,
And lamèd lie deep-draughted argosies;
I scorn myself, that put for such strange toys
The wit of man to purposes of boys.