“‘Give me,’ he has said, ‘but the matter
And means the gods lot her,
My brain could evolve a creation
More seemly, more sane.’
—“If ever a naughtiness seized me
To woo adulation
From creatures more keen than those crude ones
That first formed my train—
“If inly a moment I murmured,
‘The simple praise sweetly,
But sweetlier the sage’—and did rashly
Man’s vision unrein,
“I rue it! . . . His guileless forerunners,
Whose brains I could blandish,
To measure the deeps of my mysteries
Applied them in vain.
“From them my waste aimings and futile
I subtly could cover;
‘Every best thing,’ said they, ‘to best purpose
Her powers preordain.’—
“No more such! . . . My species are dwindling,
My forests grow barren,
My popinjays fail from their tappings,
My larks from their strain.
“My leopardine beauties are rarer,
My tusky ones vanish,
My children have aped mine own slaughters
To quicken my wane.
“Let me grow, then, but mildews and mandrakes,
And slimy distortions,
Let nevermore things good and lovely
To me appertain;
“For Reason is rank in my temples,
And Vision unruly,
And chivalrous laud of my cunning
Is heard not again!”