What without me were all the poet’s skill?—­
  Dead, sensuous form without the quickening soul. 
What without me the instinctive aim of will?—­

A useless magnet pointing to no pole. 
  What the fine ear and the creative hand? 
Most potent spirits free from man’s control.

I, the ideal, by the poet stand
  When all his soul o’erflows with holy fire,
When currents of the beautiful and grand

Run glittering down along each burning wire
  Until the heart of the great world doth feel
The electric shock of his God-kindled lyre:—­

Then rolls the thunderous music peal on peal,
  Or in the breathless after-pause, a strain
Simpler and sweeter through the hush doth steal—­

Like to the pattering drops of summer rain
  Or rustling grass, when fragrance fills the air
And all the groves are vocal once again: 

Whatever form, whatever shape I bear,
  The Spirit of high Impulse, and the Soul
Of all conceptions beautiful and rare,

Am I; who now swift spurning all control,
  On rapid wings—­the Ariel of the Muse—­
Dart from the dazzling centre to the pole;

Now in the magic mimicry of hues
  Such as surround God’s golden throne, descend
In Titian’s skies the boundaries to confuse

Betwixt earth’s heaven and heaven’s own heaven to blend
  In Raphael’s forms the human and divine,
Where spirit dawns, and matter seems to end.

Again on wings of melody, so fine
  They mock the sight, but fall upon the ear
Like tuneful rose-leaves at the day’s decline—­

And with the music of a happier sphere
  Entrance some master of melodious sound,
Till startled men the hymns of angels hear.

Happy for me when, in the vacant round
  Of barren ages, one great steadfast soul
Faithful to me and to his art is found.

But, ah! my sisters, with my grief condole;
  Join in my sorrows and respond my sighs;
And let your sobs the funeral dirges toll;

Weep those who falter in the great emprise—­
  Who, turning off upon some poor pretence,
Some worthless guerdon or some paltry prize,

Down from the airy zenith through the immense
  Sink to the low expedients of an hour,
And barter soul for all the slough of sense,—­

Just when the mind had reached its regal power,
  And fancy’s wing its perfect plume unfurl’d,—­
Just when the bud of promise in the flower

Of all completeness opened on the world—­
  When the pure fire that heaven itself outflung
Back to its native empyrean curled,

Like vocal incense from a censer swung:—­
  Ah, me! to be subdued when all seemed won—­
That I should fly when I would fain have clung.

Yet so it is,—­our radiant course is run;—­
  Here we must part, the deathless lay unsung,
And, more than all, the deathless deed undone.