A second time her yearly course fulfilled. A ray divine unto my thought appeared, Lady, thy beauty. Similar effects Beauty and music's harmony produce, Revealing both the mysteries sublime Of unknown Eden. Thence the loving soul, Though injured in his love, adores the birth Of his fond mind, the amorous idea That doth include Olympus in its range, And seems in face, in manner and in speech Like unto her whom the enchanted lover Fancies alone to cherish and admire. Not her, but that sweet image, he doth clasp Even in the raptures of a fond embrace. At last his error and the objects changed Perceiving, wrath invades him, and he oft Wrongly accuses her he thought he loved. The mind of woman to that lofty height Rarely ascends, and what her charms inspire She little thinks and seldom understands. So frail a mind can harbour no such thought. In vain doth man, deluded by the light Of those enthralling eyes, indulge in hope; In vain he asks for deep and hidden thoughts, Transcending mortal ken, of her to whom Hath Nature's law a lesser rank assigned, For as her form less strength than man's received, So too her mind less energy and depth. Nor thou as yet what inspirations vast Within my thought thy loveliness aroused, Aspasia, could'st conceive. Thou little knowest What love unmeasured and what woes intense, What frenzy wild and feelings without name, Thou didst within me move, nor shall the time Appear when thou canst know it. Equally The skilled performer ignorant remains Of what with hand or voice he doth arouse Within his hearers. That Aspasia now Is dead, whom I so worshipped. She lies low For evermore, once idol of my life; Unless at times, a cherished shade, she rises, Ere long to vanish. Thou art still alive, Not merely lovely, but of such perfection That, as I think, thou dost eclipse the rest. But now the ardour, born of thee, is spent; Because I loved not thee, but that fair goddess Who had her dwelling in me, now her grave. Her long I worshipped, and so was I pleased By her celestial loveliness, that I, Even from the first full conscious and aware Of what thou art, so wily and so false, Beholding in thine eyes the light of hers, Fondly pursued thee while she lived in me; Not dazzled or deluded, but induced By the enjoyment of that sweet resemblance, A long and bitter slavery to bear.