o Muse will I invoke; for she is fled!

Lo! where she sits, breathing, yet all but dead. 

She loved the heavens of old, she thought them fair;

And dream'd of Gods in Tempe's golden air.

For her the wind had voice, the sea its cry;

She deem'd heroic Greece could never die.

Breathless was she, to think what nymphs might play

In clear green depths, deep-shaded from the day;

She thought the dim and inarticulate god

Was beautiful, nor knew she man a sod;

But hoped what seem'd might not be all untrue,

And feared to look beyond the eternal blue.

But now the heavens are bared of dreams divine.

Still murmurs she, like Autumn, This was mine!

How should she face the ghastly, jarring Truth,

That questions all, and tramples without ruth?

And still she clings to Ida of her dreams,

And sobs, Ah! let the world be what it seems!

Then the shy nymph shall softly come again;

The world, once more, make music for her pain.

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