Came Reverence from the Huntress on her heights? 
     From the Persuader came it, in those vales
     Whereunto she melodiously invites,
     Her troops of eager servitors regales? 
     Not far those two great Powers of Nature speed
     Disciple steps on earth when sole they lead;
     Nor either points for us the way of flame. 
     From him predestined mightier it came;
     His task to hold them both in breast, and yield
     Their dues to each, and of their war be field.

     The foes that in repulsion never ceased,
     Must he, who once has been the goodly beast
     Of one or other, at whose beck he ran,
     Constrain to make him serviceable man;
     Offending neither, nor the natural claim
     Each pressed, denying, for his true man’s name.

     Ah, what a sweat of anguish in that strife
     To hold them fast conjoined within him still;
     Submissive to his will
     Along the road of life! 
     And marvel not he wavered if at whiles
     The forward step met frowns, the backward smiles. 
     For Pleasure witched him her sweet cup to drain;
     Repentance offered ecstasy in pain. 
     Delicious licence called it Nature’s cry;
     Ascetic rigours crushed the fleshly sigh;
     A tread on shingle timed his lame advance
     Flung as the die of Bacchanalian Chance,
     He of the troubled marching army leaned
     On godhead visible, on godhead screened;
     The radiant roseate, the curtained white;
     Yet sharp his battle strained through day, through night.

     He drank of fictions, till celestial aid
     Might seem accorded when he fawned and prayed;
     Sagely the generous Giver circumspect,
     To choose for grants the egregious, his elect;
     And ever that imagined succour slew
     The soul of brotherhood whence Reverence drew.

     In fellowship religion has its founts: 
     The solitary his own God reveres: 
     Ascend no sacred Mounts
     Our hungers or our fears. 
     As only for the numbers Nature’s care
     Is shown, and she the personal nothing heeds,
     So to Divinity the spring of prayer
     From brotherhood the one way upward leads. 
     Like the sustaining air
     Are both for flowers and weeds. 
     But he who claims in spirit to be flower,
     Will find them both an air that doth devour.

     Whereby he smelt his treason, who implored
     External gifts bestowed but on the sword;
     Beheld himself, with less and less disguise,
     Through those blood-cataracts which dimmed his eyes,
     His army’s foe, condemned to strive and fail;
     See a black adversary’s ghost prevail;
     Never, though triumphs hailed him, hope to win
     While still the conflict tore his breast within.