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, or all thy tribe,
‘To the great world? Thou art a dreaming thing,
‘A fever of thyself think of the Earth;
‘What bliss even in hope is there for thee?
‘What haven? every creature hath its home;
‘Every sole man hath days of joy and pain,
‘Whether his labours be sublime or low
‘The pain alone; the joy alone; distinct:
‘Only the dreamer venoms all his days,
‘Bearing more woe than all his sins deserve.
‘Therefore, that happiness be somewhat shar’d,
‘Such things as thou art are admitted oft
‘Into like gardens thou didst pass erewhile,
‘And suffer’d in these temples: for that cause
‘Thou standest safe beneath this statue’s knees.’
‘That I am favour’d for unworthiness,
‘By such propitious parley medicin’d
‘In sickness not ignoble, I rejoice,
‘Aye, and could weep for love of such award.’
So answer’d I, continuing, ‘If it please,
‘Majestic shadow, tell me: sure not all
‘Those melodies sung into the world’s ear
‘Are useless: sure a poet is a sage;
‘A humanist, physician to all men.
‘That I am none I feel, as vultures
