Hast thou forgotten whose thou art?
To what high service consecrate?
I gave thee not a noble heart
To wed with such ignoble fate.
I found thee where the laurels grow
Around the lonely Delphian shrine;
There, where the sacred fountains flow,
I found thee, and I made thee mine.
I gave thy soul to agony,
And strange unsatisfied desire,
That thou mightst dearer be to me,
And worthier of thy burning lyre.
O child, thy fate had made thee God,
To thee such powers divine were given;
The paths of fire thou mightst have trod
Had led thee to the stars of heaven.
And those who in the early dawn
Of beauty sat and sang of day,
Deep in their twilight shades withdrawn,
Had heard thy coming far away,—
With haunting music sweet and strange,
And airs ambrosial blown before,
Vague breathings of the floral change
That glorifies the hills of yore:
Had felt the joy those only find
Who in their secret souls have known
The mystery of the poet mind
That through all beauty feels its own:
Had felt the God within them rise
To meet thy radiant soul divine;
Had searched with their prophetic eyes
The midnight luminous of thine.
So fondly did Urania deem!
So proudly did she prophesy!
Oh, ruin of a noble dream
She thought too glorious to die!
Nor knew thy passionate songs of yore
Were as a promise unfulfilled,—
A stately portal set before
The palace thou shall never build!