Or thronging all one porch of Paradise
A group of Houris bow'd to see
The dying Islamite, with hands and
eyes

That said, We wait for thee.

Or mythic Uther's deeply-wounded son In some fair space of sloping greens Lay, dozing in the vale of Avalon,

And watch'd by weeping queens.

Or hollowing one hand against his ear,
To list a foot-fall, ere he saw
The wood-nymph, stay'd the Ausonian
king to hear

Of wisdom and of law.

Or over hills with peaky tops engrail'd, And many a tract of palm and rice, The throne of Indian Cama slowly sail'd A summer fann'd with spice.

Or sweet Europa's mantle blew unclasp'd,

From off her shoulder backward borne: From one hand droop'd a crocus; one hand grasp'd

The mild bull's golden horn.

Or else flush'd Ganymede, his rosy thigh
Half-buried in the eagle's down,
Sole as a flying star shot thro' the sky
Above the pillar'd town.

Nor these alone; but every legend fair
Which the supreme Caucasian mind
Carved out of Nature for itself was there,
Not less than life design'd.

Above, the fair hall-ceiling stately-set
Many an arch high up did lift,
And angels rising and descending met
With interchange of gift.

Below was all mosaic choicely plann'd
With cycles of the human tale

Of this wide world, the times of every land

So wrought they will not fail.

The people here, a beast of burden slow, Toil'd onward, prick'd with goads and stings;

Here play'd, a tiger, rolling to and fro The heads and crowns of kings;

Here rose, an athlete, strong to break or bind

All force in bonds that might endure, And here once more like some sick man declined,

And trusted any cure.

But over these she trod; and those great bells

Began to chime. She took her throne; She sat betwixt the shining oriels,

To sing her songs alone.

And thro' the topmost oriels' colored flame

Two godlike faces gazed below; Plato the wise, and large-brow'd Verulam,

The first of those who know.

And so she throve and prosper'd; so three years

She prosper'd; on the fourth she fell, Like Herod, when the shout was in his

ears,

Struck thro' with pangs of hell.

Lest she should fail and perish utterly,
God, before whom ever lie bare
The abysmal deeps of personality,

Plagued her with sore despair.

When she would think, where' er she turn'd her sight

The airy hand confusion wrought, Wrote. Mene, mene," and divided quite The kingdom of her thought.

Deep dread and loathing of her solitude Fell on her, from which mood was born

Scorn of herself; again, from out that mood

Laughter at her self-scorn.

What is not this my place of strength," she said,

"My spacious mansion built for me, Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid

Since my first memory?”

But in dark corners of her palace stood
Uncertain shapes; and unawares
On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears
of blood,

And horrible nightmares,

And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame,

And, with dim fretted foreheads all, On corpses three-months-old at noon she

came,

That stood against the wall.

A spot of dull stagnation, without light Or power of movement, seem'd my soul,

Mid onward-sloping motions infinite

Making for one sure goal;

A still salt pool, lock'd in with bars of sand,

Left on the shore, that hears all night The plunging seas draw backward from the land

Their moon led waters white;

A star that with the choral starry dance Join'd not, but stood, and standing

saw

The hollow orb of moving Circumstance Roll'd round by one fix'd law.

Back on herself her serpent pride had curl'd.

"No voice," she shriek'd in that lone

hall,

"No voice breaks thro' the stillness of this world;

One deep, deep silence all!"

She, mouldering with the dull earth's mouldering sod,

Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame, Lay there exiled from eternal God, Lost to her place and name;

And death and life she hated equally, And nothing saw, for her despair, But dreadful time, dreadful eternity, No comfort any where ;

Remaining utterly confused with fears, And ever worse with growing time, And ever unrelieved by dismal tears, And all alone in crime.