A human breast should be untold; all passions, All soft emotions, from the turbulent stir Within a heart fed with desires like mine, To the last comfort shutting the tired lids Of him who sleeps the sultry noon away Beneath the tent-tree by the wayside well: And this in language as the need should be, Now poured at once forth in a burning flow, Now piled up in a grand array of words. This done, to perfect and consummate all, Even as a luminous haze links star to star, I would supply all chasms with music, breathing Mysterious motions of the soul, no way To be defined save in strange melodies. Last, having thus revealed all I could love, Having received all love bestowed on it, I would die: preserving so throughout my course God full on me, as I was full on men: He would approve my prayer, "I have gone through The loveliness of life; create for me If not for men, or take me to thyself, Eternal, infinite love!" If thou hast ne'er Conceived this mighty aim, this full desire, Thou hast not passed my trial, and thou art No king of mine. _Par._ Ah me! _Apr._ But thou art here! Thou didst not gaze like me upon that end Till thine own powers for compassing the bliss Were blind with glory; nor grow mad to grasp At once the prize long patient toil should claim, Nor spurn all granted short of that. And I Would do as thou, a second time: nay, listen! Knowing ourselves, our world, our task so great, Our time so brief, 't is clear if we refuse The means so limited, the tools so rude To execute our purpose, life will fleet, And we shall fade, and leave our task undone. We will be wise in time: what though our work Be fashioned in despite of their ill-service, Be crippled every way? 'T were little praise Did full resources wait on our goodwill At every turn. Let all be as it is. Some say the earth is even so contrived That tree and flower, a vesture gay, conceal A bare and skeleton framework. Had we means Answering to our mind! But now I seem Wrecked on a savage isle: how rear thereon My palace? Branching palms the props shall be, Fruit glossy mingling; gems are for the East; Who heeds them? I can pass them. Serpents' scales, And painted birds' down, furs and fishes' skins Must help me; and a little here and there Is all I can aspire to: still my art Shall show its birth was in a gentler clime. "Had I green jars of malachite, this way I'd range them: where those sea-shells glisten above, Cressets should hang, by right: this way we set The purple carpets, as these mats are laid, Woven of fern and rush and blossoming flag." Or if, by fortune, some completer grace Be spared to me, some fragment, some slight sample Of the prouder workmanship my own home boasts,