He ended, and I felt my soul grow faint
With too much sweetness.

In a mist of grace
They faded, that bright company, and seemed
To melt into each other and shape themselves
Into new forms, and those fair goddesses
Blent in a perfect woman—all the calm
High motherhood of Heré, the sweet smile
Of Cypris, fair Athené's earnest eyes,
And the young purity of Artemis,
Blent in a perfect woman; and in her arms,
Fused by some cosmic interlacing curves
Of Beauty into a new Innocence,
A child with eyes divine, a little child,
A little child—no more.

And those great gods
Of Power and Beauty left a heavenly form
Strong not to act, but suffer; fair and meek,
Not proud and eager; with soft eyes of grace,
Not bold with joyous youth; and for the fire
Of song, and for the happy careless life,
A sorrowful pilgrimage—changed, yet the same
Only Diviner far; and keeping still
The Life God-lighted and the sacrifice.

And when these faded wholly, at my side,
Tho' hidden before by those too-radiant forms,
I was aware once more of her, my guide
Psyche, who had not left me, floating near
On golden wings; and all the plains of heaven
Were left to us, me and my soul alone.

Then when my thought revived again, I said
Whispering, "But Zeus I saw not, the prime Source
And Sire of all the gods."

And she, bent low
With downcast eyes: "Nay. Thou hast seen of Him
All that thine eyes can bear, in those fair forms
Which are but parts of Him and are indeed
Attributes of the Substance which supports
The Universe of Things—the Soul of the World,
The Stream which flows Eternal, from no Source
Into no Sea, His Purity, His Strength,
His Love, His Knowledge, His unchanging rule
Of Duty, thou hast seen, only a part
And not the whole, being a finite mind
Too weak for infinite thought; nor, couldst thou see
All of Him visible to mortal sight,
Wouldst thou see all His essence, since the gods—
Glorified essences of Human mould,
Who are but Zeus made visible to men—
See Him not wholly, only some thin edge
And halo of His glory; nor know they
What vast and unsuspected Universes
Lie beyond thought, where yet He rules, like those
Vast Suns we cannot see, round which our Sun
Moves with his system, or those darker still
Which not even thus we know, but yet exist
Tho' no eye marks, nor thought itself, and lurk
In the awful Depths of Space; or that which is
Not orbed as yet, but indiscrete, confused,
Sown thro' the void—the faintest gleam of light
Which sets itself to Be. And yet is He
There too, and rules, none seeing. But sometimes
To this our heaven, which is so like to earth
But nearer to Him, for awhile He shows
Some gleam of His own brightness, and methinks
It cometh soon; but thou, if thou shouldst gaze,
Thy Life will rush to His—the tiny spark
Absorbed in that full blaze—and what there is
Of mortal fall from thee."

But I: "Oh, soul,
What holdeth Life more precious than to know
The Giver and to die?"

Then she: "Behold!
Look upward and adore."

And with the word,
Unhasting, undelaying, gradual, sure,
The floating cloud which clothed the hidden peak
Rose slow in awful silence, laying bare
Spire after rocky spire, snow after snow,
Whiter and yet more dreadful, till at last
It left the summit clear.

Then with a bound,
In the twinkling of an eye, in the flash of a thought,
I knew an Awful Effluence of Light,
Formless, Ineffable, Perfect, burst on me
And flood my being round, and take my life
Into itself. I saw my guide bent down
Prostrate, her wings before her face; and then
No more.