The chord's might half discovered, what should pluck One string, his finger, was found palsy-struck. And then no marvel if the spirit, shown A saddest sight--the body lost alone Through her officious proffered help, deprived Of this and that enjoyment Fate contrived,-- Virtue, Good, Beauty, each allowed slip hence,-- Vaingloriously were fain, for recompense, To stem the ruin even yet, protract The body's term, supply the power it lacked From her infinity, compel it learn These qualities were only Time's concern, And body may, with spirit helping, barred-- Advance the same, vanquished--obtain reward, Reap joy where sorrow was intended grow, Of Wrong make Right, and turn Ill Good below. And the result is, the poor body soon Sinks under what was meant a wondrous boon, Leaving its bright accomplice all aghast. So much was plain then, proper in the past; To be complete for, satisfy the whole Series of spheres--Eternity, his soul Needs must exceed, prove incomplete for, each Single sphere--Time. But does our knowledge reach No farther? Is the cloud of hindrance broke [Sidenote: But, even here, is failure inevitable?] But by the failing of the fleshly yoke, Its loves and hates, as now when death lets soar Sordello, self-sufficient as before, Though during the mere space that shall elapse 'Twixt his enthralment in new bonds, perhaps? Must life be ever just escaped, which should Have been enjoyed?--nay, might have been and would, Each purpose ordered right--the soul's no whit Beyond the body's purpose under it-- Like yonder breadth of watery heaven, a bay, And that sky-space of water, ray for ray And star for star, one richness where they mixed As this and that wing of an angel, fixed, Tumultuary splendors folded in To die--would soul, proportioned thus, begin Exciting discontent, or surelier quell The body if, aspiring, it rebel? But how so order life? Still brutalize The soul, the sad world's way, with muffled eyes To all that was before, all that shall be After this sphere--all and each quality Save some sole and immutable Great-Good And Beauteous whither fate has loosed its hood [Sidenote: Or may failure here be success also] To follow? Never may some soul see All --The Great Before and After, and the Small Now, yet be saved by this the simplest lore, And take the single course prescribed before, As the king-bird with ages on his plumes Travels to die in his ancestral glooms? But where descry the Love that shall select That course? Here is a soul whom, to affect, Nature has plied with all her means, from trees And flowers e'en to the Multitude!--and these, Decides he save or no? One word to end! Ah, my Sordello, I this once befriend And speak for you. Of a Power above you still