The torment of all-things-compassed,
  The plague of nought-to-desire;
And Man the invincible queller,
  Man with his foot on his foes,
In boundless satiety hungred,
  Restless from utter repose,
Victor of nature, victor
  Of the prince of the powers of the air,
By mighty weariness vanquished,
  And crowned with august despair.

Then, at his dreadful zenith,
  He cried unto God:  “O Thou
Whom of old in my days of striving
  Methought I needed not,—­now,
In this my abject glory,
  My hopeless and helpless might,
Hearken and cheer and succour!”
  And God from His lonely height,
From eternity’s passionless summits,
  On suppliant Man looked down,
And His brow waxed human with pity,
  Belying its awful crown. 
“Thy richest possession,” He answered,
  “Blest Hope, will I restore,
And the infinite wealth of weakness
  Which was thy strength of yore;
And I will arouse from slumber,
  In his hold where bound he lies,
Thine enemy most benefic;—­
  O Asrael, hear and rise!”

And a sound like the heart of nature
  Riven and cloven and torn,
Announced, to the ear universal,
  Undying Death new-born. 
Sublime he rose in his fetters,
  And shook the chains aside
Ev’n as some mortal sleeper
  ’Mid forests in autumntide
Rises and shakes off lightly
  The leaves that lightly fell
On his limbs and his hair unheeded
  While as yet he slumbered well.

And Deity paused and hearkened,
  Then turned to the undivine,
Saying, “O Man, My creature,
  Thy lot was more blest than Mine. 
I taste not delight of seeking,
  Nor the boon of longing know. 
There is but one joy transcendent,
  And I hoard it not but bestow. 
I hoard it not nor have tasted,
  But freely I gave it to thee—­
The joy of most glorious striving,
  Which dieth in victory.” 
Thus, to the Soul of the Dreamer,
  This Dream out of darkness flew,
Through the horn or the ivory portal,
  But he wist not which of the two.

SHELLEY’S CENTENARY

(4TH AUGUST 1892)

Within a narrow span of time,
Three princes of the realm of rhyme,
At height of youth or manhood’s prime,
  From earth took wing,
To join the fellowship sublime
  Who, dead, yet sing.

He, first, his earliest wreath who wove
Of laurel grown in Latmian grove,
Conquered by pain and hapless love
  Found calmer home,
Roofed by the heaven that glows above
  Eternal Rome.

A fierier soul, its own fierce prey,
And cumbered with more mortal clay,
At Missolonghi flamed away,
  And left the air
Reverberating to this day
  Its loud despair.

Alike remote from Byron’s scorn,
And Keats’s magic as of morn
Bursting for ever newly-born
  On forests old,
Waking a hoary world forlorn
  With touch of gold,