Like Sibyls of the future; they have power—

The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;

They make us what we were not—what they will,

And shake us with the vision that's gone by,[36]

The dread of vanished shadows—Are they so?

Is not the past all shadow?—What are they?

Creations of the mind?—The mind can make

Substance, and people planets of its own20[34]

20

[34]

With beings brighter than have been, and give

A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.[37]

I would recall a vision which I dreamed

Perchance in sleep—for in itself a thought,

A slumbering thought, is capable of years,

And curdles a long life into one hour.[38]

II.

I saw two beings in the hues of youth

Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,

Green and of mild declivity, the last

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