And the Student leaves his poring,
And his venturous exploring
In the gold and gem-enfolding
Waters of the ancient lore—­
Seeking in its buried treasures,
Means for life’s most common pleasures;
Neither vicious nor ambitious—­
Simple wants and simple wishes. 
Ah! he finds the ancient learning
But the Spartan’s iron ore;
Without value in an era
Far more golden
Than the olden—­
When the beautiful chimera,
Love, hath almost wholly faded
Even from the dreams of men. 
From his prison
Newly risen—­
From his book-enchanted den—­
The stronger magic of the morning drives him forth again.

And the Artist, too—­the Gifted—­
He whose soul is heaven-ward lifted. 
Till it drinketh inspiration
At the fountain of the skies;
He, within whose fond embraces
Start to life the marble graces;
Or, with God-like power presiding,
With the potent pencil gliding,
O’er the void chaotic canvas
Bids the fair creations rise! 
And the quickened mass obeying
Heaves its mountains;
From its fountains
Sends the gentle streams a-straying
Through the vales, like Love’s first feelings
Stealing o’er a maiden’s heart;
The Creator—­
Imitator—­
From his easel forth doth start,
And from God’s glorious Nature learns anew his Art!

But who is this with tresses flowing,
Flashing eyes and forehead glowing,
From whose lips the thunder-music
Pealeth o’er the listening lands? 
’Tis the first and last of preachers—­
First and last of priestly teachers;
First and last of those appointed
In the ranks of the anointed;
With their songs like swords to sever
Tyranny and Falsehood’s bands! 
’Tis the Poet—­sum and total
Of the others,
With his brothers,
In his rich robes sacerdotal,
Singing with his golden psalter. 
Comes he now to wed the twain—­
Truth and Beauty—­
Rest and Duty—­
Hope, and Fear, and Joy, and Pain,
Unite for weal or woe beneath the Poet’s chain!

And the shapes that follow after,
Some in tears and some in laughter,
Are they not the fairy phantoms
In his glorious vision seen? 
Nymphs from shady forests wending,
Goddesses from heaven descending;
Three of Jove’s divinest daughters,
Nine from Aganippe’s waters;
And the passion-immolated,
Too fond-hearted Tyrian Queen,
Various shapes of one idea,
Memory-haunting,
Heart-enchanting,
Cythna, Genevieve, and Nea,[14]
Rosalind and all her sisters,
Born by Avon’s sacred stream,
All the blooming
Shapes, illuming
The Eternal Pilgrim’s dream,[15]
Follow the Poet’s steps beneath the morning’s beam.