"I change with man, Mother, not more than partner, of his fate. Ere he was born I dreamed that he might be, And through long ages of imperfect life Waited for him. Then vexed with monstrous shapes, That spawned and wallowed in primeval ooze, I lay supine and slept, or dreamed to sleep; And dreamed, or waking felt as in a dream, Some touch of hands, some soft delivering help, And he was there! His faint new voice I heard; His eye that met the sun, his upright tread, Thenceforth were mine! And with him came the palm, The oak, the rose, the swan, the nightingale; The barren bough hung apples to the sun; Dry stalks made harvest: breezes in the woods Then first found music, and the turbid sea First rolled a crystal breaker to the shore. His foot was on the mountains, and the wave Upheld him: over all things huge and coarse There came the breathing of a regal sway, Which bent them into beauty. Order new Followed the march of new necessity, And what was useless, or unclaimed before, Took value from the seizure of his hands." In the midst of like thoughts, a bud on a rose which stands by Gæa bursts open, and Eros, the antique god of young love, appears from it. GÆA. Blithe, tricksome spirit! art thou left alone Of gods and all their intermediate kin The sweet survivor? Yet a single seed, When soil and seasons lend their alchemy, May clothe a barren continent in green. EROS. Was I born, that I should die? Stars that fringe the outer sky Know me: yonder sun were dim Save my torch enkindle him. Then, when first the primal pair Found me in the twilight air, I was older than their day, Yet to them as young as they. All decrees of fate I spurn; Banishment is my return: Hate and force purvey for me, Death is shining victory. VIII.