And surely this the bitterest of ill ;– To feel the old aspirings fair and free, Become blind motions of a powerless will Through swine-like frames dispersed to swine-like issues still. But make us men again, for that thou may'st! Yea, make us men, Enchantress, and restore These grovelling shapes, degraded and debased, To fair embodiments of men once more; Yea, by all men that ever woman bore; Yea, e'en by him hereafter born in pain, Shall draw sustainment from thy bosom's core, O'er whom thy face yet kindly shall remain, And find its like therein,—make thou us men again! Make thou us men again,-if men but groping That dark Hereafter which th' Olympians keep; Make thou us men again,-if men but hoping Behind death's doors security of sleep ;For yet to laugh is somewhat, and to weep;— To feel delight of living, and to plough The salt-blown acres of the shoreless deep; Better,-yea better far all these than bow Foul faces to foul earth, and yearn—as we do now! So they in speech unsyllabled. But She, Compelled them groaning to the sties again; Where they in hopeless bitterness were fain To rend the oaken woodwork as before, And tear the troughs in impotence of pain,Not knowing, they, that even at the door Divine Odysseus stood, as Hermes told of yore. A CASE OF CAMEOS VAGATE. (The Power of Love.) IRST, in an Agate-stone, a Centaur strong, FIRS With square man-breasts and hide of dapple dun, His brown arms bound behind him with a thong, For, on his back, by some strange power of art, CHALCEDONY. (The Thefts of Mercury.) THE next in legend bade "Beware of show!" Who stood with downcast eyes, and feigned distress, To meet that angry voice and aspect joined. : SARDONYX. (The Song of Orpheus.) THEN, on a Sardonyx, the man of Thrace, AMETHYST. (The Crowning of Silenus.) NEXT came an Amethyst,—the grape in hue. Yet but a King of Sleep he seemed at best, BERYL. (The Sirens.) LASTLY, with "Pleasure" was a Beryl graven, A tall ship drawing shoreward--helplessly. |