Turning from these with awe, once more I rais’d

      My eyes to fathom the space every way;

      The embossed roof, the silent massy range

      Of columns north and south, ending in mist

      Of nothing, then to eastward, where black gates

      Were shut against the sunrise evermore.

      Then to the west I look’d, and saw far off

      An image, huge of feature as a cloud,

      At level of whose feet an altar slept,

      To be approach’d on either side by steps,

      And marble balustrade, and patient travail

      To count with toil the innumerable degrees.

      Towards the altar sober paced I went,

      Repressing haste, as too unholy there;

      And, coming nearer, saw beside the shrine

      One minist’ring; and there arose a flame.

      When in mid May the sickening East wind

      Shifts sudden to the south, the small warm rain

      Melts out the frozen incense from all flowers,

      And fills the air with so much pleasant health

      That even the dying man forgets his shroud;

      Even so that lofty sacrificial fire,

      Sending forth Maian incense, spread around

      Forgetfulness of everything but bliss,

      And clouded all the altar with soft smoke,

      From whose white fragrant curtains thus I heard

      Language pronounc’d: ‘If thou canst not ascend

      ‘These steps, die on that marble where thou art.

      ‘Thy flesh, near cousin to the common dust,

      ‘Will parch for lack of nutriment thy bones

      ‘Will wither in few years, and vanish so

      ‘That not the quickest eye could find a grain

      ‘Of what thou now art on that pavement cold.

      ‘The sands of thy short life are spent this hour,

      ‘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,