All have their shapes and qualities to nurse

The soul’s aspirings, and, from blooming youth

To ripe old age, provoke the quest of truth.

XXXIII.

“Truth! I would know thee wert thou e’er so bad,

Bad as thy persecutors deem or fear,

Wert thou in more than Gorgon terrors clad,

Thy glance a death to every feeling dear;

Taught thou that God a demon’s passions had,

That Earth is Hell, and that the damned dwell here,