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‘And no hand in the universe can turn

       ‘Thy hourglass, if these gummed leaves be burnt

       ‘Ere thou canst mount up these immortal steps.’

       I heard, I look’d: two senses both at once,

       So fine, so subtle, felt the tyranny

       Of that fierce threat and the hard task proposed.

       Prodigious seem’d the toil, the leaves were yet

       Burning when suddenly a palsied chill

       Struck from the paved level up my limbs,

       And was ascending quick to put cold grasp

       Upon those streams that pulse beside the throat:

       I shriek’d; and the sharp anguish of my shriek

       Stung my own ears I strove hard to escape

       The numbness; strove to gain the lowest step.

       Slow, heavy, deadly was my pace: the cold

       Grew stifling, suffocating, at the heart;

       And when I clasp’d my hands I felt them not.

       One minute before death, my iced foot touch’d

       The lowest stair; and as it touch’d, life seem’d

       To pour in at the toes: I mounted up,

       As once fair angels on a ladder flew

       From the green turf to Heaven. ‘Holy Power,’

       Cried I, approaching near the horned shrine,

       ‘What am I that should so be saved from death?

       ‘What am I that another death come not

       ‘To choke my utterance sacrilegious here?’

       Then said the veiled shadow ‘Thou hast felt

       ‘What ’tis to die and live again before

       ‘Thy fated hour. That thou hadst power to do so

       ‘Is thy own safety; thou hast dated on

       ‘Thy doom.’ ‘High Prophetess,’ said I, ‘purge off,

       ‘Benign, if so it please thee, my mind’s film.’

       ‘None can usurp this height,’ return’d that shade,

       ‘But those to whom the miseries of the world

       ‘Are misery, and will not let them rest.

       ‘All else who find a haven in the world,

       ‘Where they may thoughtless sleep away their days,

       ‘If by a chance into this fane they come,

       ‘Rot on the pavement where thou rottedst half.’

       ‘Are there not thousands in the world,’ said I,

       Encourag’d by the sooth voice of the shade,

       ‘Who love their fellows even to the death;

       ‘Who feel the giant agony of the world;

       ‘And more, like slaves to poor humanity,

       ‘Labour for mortal good? I sure should see

       ‘Other men here; but I am here alone.’

       ‘Those whom thou spak’st of are no vision’ries,’

       Rejoin’d that voice; ‘they are no dreamers weak;

       ‘They seek no wonder but the human face,

       ‘No music but a happy noted voice;

       ‘They come not here, they have no thought to come;

       ‘And thou art here, for thou art less than they:

       ‘What benefit canst thou do, or all thy tribe,

       ‘To the great world? Thou art a dreaming thing,

       ‘A fever of thyself think of the Earth;

       ‘What bliss even in hope is there for thee?

       ‘What haven? every creature hath its home;

       ‘Every sole man hath days of joy and pain,

       ‘Whether his labours be sublime or low

       ‘The pain alone; the joy alone; distinct:

       ‘Only the dreamer venoms all his days,

       ‘Bearing more woe than all his sins deserve.

       ‘Therefore, that happiness be somewhat shar’d,

       ‘Such things as thou art are admitted oft

       ‘Into like gardens thou didst pass erewhile,

       ‘And suffer’d in these temples: for that cause

       ‘Thou standest safe beneath this statue’s knees.’

       ‘That I am favour’d for unworthiness,

       ‘By such propitious parley medicin’d

       ‘In sickness not ignoble, I rejoice,

       ‘Aye, and could weep for love of such award.’

       So answer’d I, continuing, ‘If it please,

       ‘Majestic shadow, tell me: sure not all

       ‘Those melodies sung into the world’s ear

       ‘Are useless: sure a poet is a sage;

       ‘A humanist, physician to all men.

       ‘That I am none I feel, as vultures feel

       ‘They are no birds when eagles are abroad.

       ‘What am I then? Thou spakest of my tribe:

       ‘What tribe?’ The tall shade veil’d in drooping white

       Then spake, so much more earnest, that the breath

       Moved the thin linen folds that drooping hung

       About a golden censer from the hand

       Pendent. ‘Art thou not of the dreamer tribe?

       ‘The poet and the dreamer are distinct,

       ‘Diverse, sheer opposite, antipodes.

       ‘The one pours out a balm upon the world,

       ‘The other vexes it.’ Then shouted I

       Spite of myself, and with a Pythia’s spleen,

       ‘Apollo! faded! O far flown Apollo!

       ‘Where is thy misty pestilence to creep

       ‘Into the dwellings, through the door crannies

       ‘Of all mock lyrists, large self worshipers,

       ‘And careless Hectorers in proud bad verse.

       ‘Though I breathe death with them it will be life

       ‘To see them sprawl before me into graves.

       ‘Majestic shadow, tell me where I am,

       ‘Whose altar this; for whom this incense curls;

       ‘What image this whose face I cannot see,

       ‘For the broad marble knees; and who thou art,

       ‘Of accent feminine so courteous?’

      Then the tall shade, in drooping linens veil’d,

       Spoke out, so much more earnest, that her breath

       Stirr’d the thin folds of gauze that drooping hung

       About a golden censer from her hand

       Pendent; and by her voice I knew she shed

       Long treasured tears. ‘This temple, sad and lone,

       ‘Is all spar’d from the thunder of a war

       ‘Foughten long since by giant hierarchy

       ‘Against rebellion: this old

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