"_Muse._ A boyish bard Sate suing night and stars for his reward. The sunbeam swerved and grew, a breathing, dim, For the first time, as it lit and looked on him: His forehead faded--pale his lip, and dry-- Hollow his cheek--and fever-fed his eye. Clouds lay about his brain, as on a hill, Quick with the thunder thought and lightning will. His clenched hand shook from its more than midnight clasp, Till his pen fluttered like a wingèd asp; Save that no deadly poison blacked its lips: 'Twas his to life-enlighten, not eclipse; Nor would he shade one atom of another, To have a sun his slave, a god his brother. The young moon laid her down as one who dies, Knowing that death can be no sacrifice, For that the sun, her god, through nature's night, Shall make her bosom to grow great with light. Still he sat, though his lamp sunk; and he strained His eyes, to work the nightness that remained. * * * * * _Festus._ Yes, there was a time When tomes of ancient song held eye and heart-- Were the sole lore I reeked of: the great bards Of Greece, of Rome, and mine own master land, And they who in the Holy Book are deathless-- Men who have vulgarised sublimity, And bought up truth for the nations--_parted it_ As soldiers _lotted once the garb of God_; Men who have forged gods--uttered, made them pass; In whose words, to be read with many a heaving Of the heart, is a power, _like wind in rain_: Sons of the sons of God, who, in olden days, Did leave their passionless heaven for earth and woman, Brought an immortal to a mortal breast; And, like a rainbow clasping the sweet earth, And melting in the covenant of love, Left here a bright precipitate of soul, Which lives for ever through the lines of men, Flashing by fits, like fire from an enemy's front: Whose thoughts, like bars of sunshine in shut rooms, Mid gloom, all glory, win the world to light; Who make their very follies like their souls; And, like the young moon with a ragged edge, Still in their imperfection beautiful; Whose weaknesses are lovely as their strengths, Like the white nebulous matter between stars, Which, if not light, at least is likest light."