O Pauline, I am ruined who believed That though my soul had floated from its sphere Of wild dominion into the dim orb Of self--that it was strong and free as ever! It has conformed itself to that dim orb, Reflecting all its shades and shapes, and now Must stay where it alone can be adored. I have felt this in dreams--in dreams in which I seemed the fate from which I fled; I felt A strange delight in causing my decay. I was a fiend in darkness chained forever Within some ocean-cave; and ages rolled, Till through the cleft rock, like a moonbeam, came A white swan to remain with me; and ages Rolled, yet I tired not of my first free joy In gazing on the peace of its pure wings: And then I said, "It is most fair to me, Yet its soft wings must sure have suffered change From the thick darkness, sure its eyes are dim. Its silver pinions must be cramped and numbed With sleeping ages here; it cannot leave me, For it would seem, in light beside its kind, Withered, though here to me most beautiful." And then I was a young witch whose blue eyes, As she stood naked by the river springs, Drew down a god: I watched his radiant form Growing less radiant, and it gladdened me; Till one morn, as he sat in the sunshine Upon my knees, singing to me of heaven, He turned to look at me, ere I could lose The grin with which I viewed his perishing: And he shrieked and departed and sat long By his deserted throne, but sunk at last Murmuring, as I kissed his lips and curled Around him, "I am still a god--to thee." Still I can lay my soul bare in its fall, Since all the wandering and all the weakness Will be a saddest comment on the song: And if, that done, I can be young again, I will give up all gained, as willingly As one gives up a charm which shuts him out From hope or part or care in human kind. As life wanes, all its care and strife and toil Seem strangely valueless, while the old trees Which grew by our youth's home, the waving mass Of climbing plants heavy with bloom and dew, The morning swallows with their songs like words, All these seem clear and only worth our thoughts: So, aught connected with my early life, My rude songs or my wild imaginings, How I look on them--most distinct amid The fever and the stir of after years! I ne'er had ventured e'en to hope for this, Had not the glow I felt at His award, Assured me all was not extinct within: His whom all honor, whose renown springs up Like sunlight which will visit all the world, So that e'en they who sneered at him at first, Come out to it, as some dark spider crawls From his foul nets which some lit torch invades, Yet spinning still new films for his retreat. Thou didst smile, poet, but can we forgive?