Or downward sweeps upon what prey may dare

Set forth from any silent, weedy lair.

But one desire on all their slopes is found,

Desire of food, the awful hunger strife;

Yet here, it may be, was begun our life,

Here all the dreams on which our vision dotes

In unevolved obscurity were bound.

Too strange it is, too terrible! And yet

It matters not how we were wrought, or whence

Life came to us with all its throb intense,