"No doubt we seem a kind of monster to you: In high desire, they know not, cannot guess By slow approaches than by single act Of immolation, any phase of death, We were as prompt to spring against the pikes, She bowed as if to veil a noble tear; And up we came to where the river sloped To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks A breadth of thunder. O'er it shook the woods, And danced the color, and, below, stuck out The bones of some vast bulk that lived and roared Before man was. She gazed a while and said, "As these rude bones to us, are we to her That will be." "Dare we dream of that," I asked, "Which wrought us, as the workman and his work, That practice betters?" "How," she cried, "you love The metaphysics! read and earn our prize, Of hemlock; our device; wrought to the life; For there are schools for all." “And yet,” I said, Dabbling a shameless hand with shameful jest, Knowledge is knowledge, and this matter hangs : Nor willing men should come among us, learnt, This craft of healing. Would tend upon you. Were you sick, ourself To your question now, Which touches on the workman and his work. Let there be light, and there was light: 't is so: And all creation is one act at once, The birth of light: but we that are not all, As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that, And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and make One act a phantom of succession: thus Our weakness somehow shapes the shadow, Time; But in the shadow will we work, and mould The woman to the fuller day." She spake Yea," With kindled eyes: we rode a league beyond, With fair Corinna's triumph: here she stood, Engirt with many a florid maiden-cheek, With mine affianced. Many a little hand In the dark crag: and then we turned, we wound Grew broader toward his death and fell, and all The rosy heights came out above the lawns. The splendor falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story; And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying: Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: O love, they die in yon rich sky, And grow forever and forever. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. |