The little laugh of water falling down Is not so musical, the clammy gold Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town Has less of sweetness in it, and the old Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony. Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile! Although the cheating merchants of the mart With iron roads profane our lovely isle, And break on whirling wheels the limbs of Art, Ay! though the crowded factories beget The blindworm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry yet! For One at least there is,—He bears his name From Dante and the seraph Gabriel,— Whose double laurels burn with deathless flame To light thine altar; He too loves thee well, Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien’s snare, And the white feet of angels coming down the golden stair, Loves thee so well, that all the World for him A gorgeous-coloured vestiture must wear, And Sorrow take a purple diadem, Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be Even in anguish beautiful;—such is the empery Which Painters hold, and such the heritage This gentle solemn Spirit doth possess, Being a better mirror of his age In all his pity, love, and weariness, Than those who can but copy common things, And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty questionings. But they are few, and all romance has flown, And men can prophesy about the sun, And lecture on his arrows—how, alone, Through a waste void the soulless atoms run, How from each tree its weeping nymph has fled, And that no more ’mid English reeds a Naiad shows her head. Methinks these new Actæons boast too soon That they have spied on beauty; what if we Have analysed the rainbow, robbed the moon Of her most ancient, chastest mystery, Shall I, the last Endymion, lose all hope Because rude eyes peer at my mistress through a telescope! What profit if this scientific age Burst through our gates with all its retinue Of modern miracles! Can it assuage One lover’s breaking heart? what can it do To make one life more beautiful, one day More godlike in its period? but now the Age of Clay Returns in horrid cycle, and the earth Hath borne again a noisy progeny Of ignorant Titans, whose ungodly birth Hurls them against the august hierarchy Which sat upon Olympus; to the Dust They have appealed, and to that barren arbiter they must Repair for judgment; let them, if they can, From Natural Warfare and insensate Chance, Create the new Ideal rule for man! Methinks that was not my inheritance; For I was nurtured otherwise, my soul Passes from higher heights of life to a more supreme goal.