Scorn not the Fortune-favour'd, that to him The light-won victory by the gods is given, Or that, as Paris, from the strife severe, The Venus draws her darling,--Whom the heaven So prospers, love so watches, I revere! And not the man upon whose eyes, with dim And baleful night, sits Fate. The Dorian lord, August Achilles, was not less divine That Vulcan wrought for him the shield and sword-- That round the mortal hover'd all the hosts Of all Olympus--that his wrath to grace, The best and bravest of the Grecian race Fell by the Trojan steel, what time the ghosts Of souls untimely slain fled to the Stygian coasts. Scorn not the Beautiful--if it be fair, And yet seem useless in thy human sight. As scentless lilies in the loving air, Be _they_ delighted--_thou_ in them delight. If without use they shine, yet still the glow May thine own eyes enamour. Oh rejoice That heaven the gifts of Song showers down below-- That what the muse hath taught him, the sweet voice Of the glad minstrel teaches thee!--the soul Which the god breathes in him, he can bestow In turn upon the listener--if his breast The blessing feel, thy heart is in that blessing blest. The busy mart let Justice still control, Weighing the guerdon to the toil!--What then? A god alone claims joy--all joy is his, Flushing with unsought light the cheeks of men. Where is no miracle, why there no bliss! Grow, change, and ripen all that mortal be, Shapen'd from form to form, by toiling time; The Blissful and the Beautiful are born Full grown, and ripen'd from Eternity-- No gradual changes to their glorious prime, No childhood dwarfs them, and no age has worn.-- Like Heaven's, each earthly Venus on the sight Comes, a dark birth, from out an endless sea; Like the first Pallas, in maturest might, Arm'd, from the Thunderer's brow, leaps forth each Thought of Light. * * * * *