Each neutralizes each then! Search your fill; You get no whole and perfect Poet--still New Ninas, Alcamos, till time's midnight Shrouds all--or better say, the shutting light Of a forgotten yesterday. Dissect Every ideal workman--(to reject In favor of your fearful ignorance The thousand phantasms eager to advance, [Sidenote: Sums up in himself all predecessors.] And point you but to those within your reach)-- Were you the first who brought--(in modern speech) The Multitude to be materialized? That loose eternal unrest--who devised An apparition i' the midst? The rout Was cheeked, a breathless ring was formed about That sudden flower: get round at any risk The gold-rough pointel, silver-blazing disk O' the lily! Swords across it! Reign thy reign [Sidenote: We just see Charlemagne, Hildebrand,] And serve thy frolic service, Charlemagne! --The very child of over-joyousness, Unfeeling thence, strong therefore: Strength by stress Of Strength comes of that forehead confident, Those widened eyes expecting heart's content, A calm as out of just-quelled noise; nor swerves For doubt, the ample cheek in gracious curves Abutting on the upthrust nether lip: He wills, how should he doubt then? Ages slip: Was it Sordello pried into the work So far accomplished, and discovered lurk A company amid the other clans, Only distinct in priests for castellans And popes for suzerains (their rule confessed Its rule, their interest its interest, Living for sake of living--there an end,-- Wrapt in itself, no energy to spend In making adversaries or allies),-- Dived you into its capabilities And dared create, out of that sect, a soul Should turn a multitude, already whole, Into its body? Speak plainer! Is 't so sure God's church lives by a King's investiture? Look to last step! A staggering--a shock-- What's mere sand is demolished, while the rock Endures: a column of black fiery dust Blots heaven--that help was prematurely thrust Aside, perchance!--but air clears, naught's erased Of the true outline! Thus much being firm based, The other was a scaffold. See him stand Buttressed upon his mattock, Hildebrand Of the huge brain-mask welded ply o'er ply As in a forge; it buries either eye White and extinct, that stupid brow; teeth clenched, The neck tight-corded, too, the chin deep-trenched, As if a cloud enveloped him while fought Under its shade, grim prizers, thought with thought At dead-lock, agonizing he, until The victor thought leap radiant up, and Will, The slave with folded arms and drooping lids They fought for, lean forth flame-like as it bids. Call him no flower--a mandrake of the earth, Thwarted and dwarfed and blasted in its birth, Rather,--a fruit of suffering's excess,