The veined shells and burnished scales which once
Enclosed my being,—husks that had their use;
I brood on all the shapes I must attain
Before I reach the Perfect, which is God,
And dream my dreams and let the rabble go;
For I am of the mountains and the sea
The deserts, and the caverns in the earth
The catacombs and fragments of old worlds.
I was ere Romulus and Remus were;