I bow before the lustre of your throne! I kiss the edges of your garment-hem, And hold myself ennobled! Answer me,-- If I had wronged you, you would answer me Out of the dusty porches of the tomb,-- Is this a dream, a falsehood? or have I Spoken the very truth?"--"The very truth!" A voice replied; and at his side he saw A form, half shadow and half substance, stand, Or, rather, rest; for on the solid earth It had no footing, more than some dense mist That wavers o'er the surface of the ground It scarcely touches. With a reverent look, The shadow's waste and wretched face was bent Above the picture,--as if greater awe Subdued its awful being, and appalled, With memories of terrible delight And fearful wonder, its devouring gaze. "You make what God makes,--beauty," said the shape. "And might not this, this second Eve, console The emptiest heart? Will not this thing outlast The fairest creature fashioned in the flesh? Before that figure Time, and Death himself, Stand baffled and disarmed. What would you ask More than God's power, from nothing to create?" The artist gazed upon the boding form, And answered: "Goblin, if you had a heart, That were an idle question. What to me Is my creative power, bereft of love? Or what to God would be that selfsame power, If so bereaved?"--"And yet the love thus mourned You calmly forfeited. For had you said To living Laura--in her burning ears-- One half that you professed to Laura dead, She would have been your own. These contraries Sort not with my intelligence. But say, Were Laura living, would the same stale play Of raging passion, tearing out its heart Upon the rock of duty, be performed?" "The same, O phantom, while the heart I bear Trembled, but turned not its magnetic faith From God's fixed centre." "If I wake for you This Laura,--give her all the bloom and glow Of that midsummer day you hold so dear,-- The smile, the motion, the impulsive heart, The love of genius,--yea, the very love, The mortal, hungry, passionate, hot love, She bore you, flesh to flesh,--would you receive That gift, in all its glory, at my hands?" A cruel smile arched the tempter's scornful lips, And glittered in the caverns of his eyes, Mocking the answer. Carlo paled and shook; A woful spasm went shuddering through his frame, Curdling his blood, and twisting his fair face With nameless torture. But he cried aloud, Out of the clouds of anguish, from the smoke Of very martyrdom, "O God, she is thine! Do with her at thy pleasure!" Something grand, And radiant as a sunbeam, touched the head He bent in awful sorrow. "Mortal, see"---- "Dare not! As Christ was sinless, I abjure These vile abominations! Shall she bear Life's burden twice, and life's temptations twice,