3

  The weavers of the web—­the Fates—­but sway
  The matter and the things of clay;
    Safe from each change that Time to matter gives,
  Nature’s blest playmate, free at will to stray
  With Gods a god, amidst the fields of Day,
    The FORM, the ARCHETYPE,[8] serenely lives. 
  Would’st thou soar heavenward on its joyous wing? 
    Cast from thee, Earth, the bitter and the real,
  High from this cramp’d and dungeon being, spring
    Into the Realm of the Ideal!

  [Footnote 8:  “Die Gestalt”—­Form, the Platonic Archetype.]

  4

  Here, bathed, Perfection, in thy purest ray,
  Free from the clogs and taints of clay,
    Hovers divine the Archetypal Man! 
  Like those dim phantom ghosts of life that gleam
  And wander voiceless by the Stygian stream,
    While yet they stand in fields Elysian,
  Ere to the flesh the Immortal ones descend—­
    If doubtful ever in the Actual life,
  Each contest—­here a victory crowns the end
    Of every nobler strife.

  5

  Not from the strife itself to set thee free,
  But more to nerve—­doth Victory
    Wave her rich garland from the Ideal clime. 
  Whate’er thy wish, the Earth has no repose—­
  Life still must drag thee onward as it flows,
    Whirling thee down the dancing surge of Time. 
  But when the courage sinks beneath the dull
    Sense of its narrow limits—­on the soul,
  Bright from the hill-tops of the Beautiful,
    Bursts the attained goal!

  6

  If worth thy while the glory and the strife
  Which fire the lists of Actual Life—­
    The ardent rush to fortune or to fame,
  In the hot field where Strength and Valour are,
  And rolls the whirling, thunder of the car,
    And the world, breathless, eyes the glorious game—­
  Then dare and strive—­the prize can but belong
    To him whose valour o’er his tribe prevails;
  In life the victory only crowns the strong—­
    He who is feeble fails.

  7

  But as some stream, when from its source it gushes,
  O’er rocks in storm and tumult rushes,
    And smooths its after course to bright repose,
  So, through the Shadow-Land of Beauty glides
  The Life Ideal—­on sweet silver tides
    Glassing the day and night star as it flows—­
  Here, contest is the interchange of Love,
    Here, rule is but the empire of the Grace;
  Gone every foe, Peace folds her wings above
    The holy, haunted place.

  8

  When through dead stone to breathe a soul of light,
  With the dull matter to unite
    The kindling genius, some great sculptor glows;
  Behold him straining every nerve intent—­
  Behold how, o’er the subject element,
    The stately THOUGHT its march laborious goes. 
  For never, save to Toil untiring, spoke
    The unwilling Truth from her mysterious well—­
  The statute only to the chisel’s stroke
    Wakes from its marble cell.