from me: I gazed as one awhile Escaped, who sees twin rainbows shine O’er his wrecked ship gulfed in brine.

My lost soul sank adown in soundless seas To ruined heaps besprent with ancient lees Of wealth: by soft stupendous ocean-trees; By anchors forged in early time, Changed to trails of rusted slime:

To where, what seemed a tomb, in this deep hell Of night, bore a dim name I dread to tell: And there I heard sound some gigantic bell, p. 75Whose thunder laughing through my brain Mocked me back to flesh again.

p. 75

Here all was emptier than the empty shade Of mist before a midnight moon decayed: Here life was strange as death, and more dismayed My spirit, now scarce conscious she Urged entreaty yet to me.

“’Tis life in life to know the King is just, And will not animate his helpless dust With fire unquenchable whose ardour must Achieve majestic deeds that raise Universal shouts of praise:

“Shouts of acclaim that gather into story, Chanted by one on some high promontory Who glowing in the dawn’s advancing glory, Far down upon the listening crowd Shines through swathes of lingering cloud:

p. 76“And fires, by what he sings, to noble feud With grosser instincts, the charged multitude, That grow in temper and similitude To those great souls whose victories Triumph still in melodies:

p. 76

“This fire will not be granted to distress, To fail in cold dead ash and bitterness: He will not grant true love that yearns to bless The world, that it may only sigh Back into itself and die.”

The words here faltering sank to undertone: Her soul was murmuring to itself alone On some wide desolation, dark, unknown; Whose limits, stretched from mortal sight Touch the happy hills of light.

“I, toiling at the task assigned to me, Am summoned from my labour suddenly: The King recalls his handmaiden; and she p. 77Submissively herself anoints, Going whither He appoints.

p. 77

“The sheaves are garnered now, her work is done, The day is waning, and she must be gone, To bend herself before the Holy One, And strictly her appointed meed There accept in very deed.”

Dead silence, more than if a thunder-stroke Had crashed the summer air, my sense awoke 

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