Never can these hills of bliss 169
Be o’erclimbed by feet like his! 
But enough!  Oh, do not dare
From the next the veil to tear,
Woven of station, trade, or dress,
More obscene than nakedness,
Wherewith plausible culture drapes
Fallen Nature’s myriad shapes! 
Let us rather love to mark
How the unextingnished spark
Still gleams through the thin disguise 179
Of our customs, pomps, and lies,
And, not seldom blown to flame,
Vindicates its ancient claim.

STUDIES FOR TWO HEADS

I

Some sort of heart I know is hers,—­
  I chanced to feel her pulse one night;
A brain she has that never errs,
  And yet is never nobly right;
It does not leap to great results,
  But, in some corner out of sight
  Suspects a spot of latent blight,
  And, o’er the impatient infinite,
She hargains, haggles, and consults.

Her eye,—­it seems a chemic test
  And drops upon you like an acid; 11
It bites you with unconscious zest,
  So clear and bright, so coldly placid;
It holds you quietly aloof,
  It holds,—­and yet it does not win you;
It merely puts you to the proof
  And sorts what qualities are in you: 
It smiles, but never brings you nearer,
  It lights,—­her nature draws not nigh;
’Tis but that yours is growing clearer 20
  To her assays;—­yes, try and try,
  You’ll get no deeper than her eye.

There, you are classified:  she’s gone
  Far, far away into herself;
Each with its Latin label on,
Your poor components, one by one,
  Are laid upon their proper shelf
In her compact and ordered mind,
And what of you is left behind
Is no more to her than the wind;
In that clear brain, which, day and night, 31
  No movement of the heart e’er jostles,
Her friends are ranged on left and right,—­
Here, silex, hornblende, sienite;
  There, animal remains and fossils.

And yet, O subtile analyst,
  That canst each property detect
Of mood or grain, that canst untwist
  Each tangled skein of intellect,
And with thy scalpel eyes lay bare 40
Each mental nerve more fine than air,—­
  O brain exact, that in thy scales
Canst weigh the sun and never err,
  For once thy patient science fails,
  One problem still defies thy art;—­
Thou never canst compute for her
The distance and diameter
  Of any simple human heart.

II

Hear him but speak, and you will feel
  The shadows of the Portico 50
Over your tranquil spirit steal,
  To modulate all joy and woe
  To one subdued, subduing glow;
Above our squabbling business-hours,
Like Phidian Jove’s, his beauty lowers,
His nature satirizes ours;
  A form and front of Attic grace,
  He shames the higgling market-place,
And dwarfs our more mechanic powers.