Mazing around my mind like moths at a shaded candle,

      In my heart like lost bats in a cave fluttering,

      Mock ye the charm whereby I thought reverently to lay you,

      When to the wall I nail’d your reticent effigys?

      Who goes there? God knows. I’m nobody. How should I answer?

      Can’t jump over a gate nor run across the meadow.

      I’m but an old whitebeard of inane identity. Pass on!

      What’s left of me to-day will very soon be nothing.

      Two demons thrust their arms out over the world,

      Hell with a ruddy torch of fire,

      And Hate with gasping mouth,

      Striving to seize two children fair

      Who play’d on the upper curve of the Earth.

      Their shapes were vast as the thoughts of man,

      But the Earth was small

      As the moon’s rim appeareth

      Scann’d through an optic glass.

      The younger child stood erect on the Earth

      As a charioteer in a car

      Or a dancer with arm upraised;

      Her whole form—barely clad

      From feet to golden head—

      Leapt brightly against the uttermost azure,

      Whereon the stars were splashes of light

      Dazed in the gulfing beds of space.

      The elder might have been stell’d to show

      The lady who led my boyish love;

      But her face was graver than e’er to me

      When I look’d in her eyes long ago,

      And the hair on her shoulders fal’n

      Nested its luminous brown

      I’ the downy spring of her wings:

      Her figure aneath was screen’d by the Earth,

      Whereoff—so small that was

      No footing for her could be—

      She appeared to be sailing free

      I’ the glide and poise of her flight.

      Then knew I the Angel Faith,

      Who was guarding human Love.

      Happy were both, of peaceful mien,

      Contented as mankind longeth to be,

      Not merry as children are;

      And show’d no fear of the Fiends’ pursuit,