30. 
’We live in our own world, and mine was made
From glorious fantasies of hope departed: 
Aye we are darkened with their floating shade,
Or cast a lustre on them—­time imparted
Such power to me—­I became fearless-hearted, 3095
My eye and voice grew firm, calm was my mind,
And piercing, like the morn, now it has darted
Its lustre on all hidden things, behind
Yon dim and fading clouds which load the weary wind.

31. 
’My mind became the book through which I grew 3100
Wise in all human wisdom, and its cave,
Which like a mine I rifled through and through,
To me the keeping of its secrets gave—­
One mind, the type of all, the moveless wave
Whose calm reflects all moving things that are, 3105
Necessity, and love, and life, the grave,
And sympathy, fountains of hope and fear,
Justice, and truth, and time, and the world’s natural sphere.

32. 
’And on the sand would I make signs to range
These woofs, as they were woven, of my thought; 3110
Clear, elemental shapes, whose smallest change
A subtler language within language wrought: 
The key of truths which once were dimly taught
In old Crotona;—­and sweet melodies
Of love, in that lorn solitude I caught 3115
From mine own voice in dream, when thy dear eyes
Shone through my sleep, and did that utterance harmonize.

33. 
’Thy songs were winds whereon I fled at will,
As in a winged chariot, o’er the plain
Of crystal youth; and thou wert there to fill 3120
My heart with joy, and there we sate again
On the gray margin of the glimmering main,
Happy as then but wiser far, for we
Smiled on the flowery grave in which were lain
Fear, Faith and Slavery; and mankind was free, 3125
Equal, and pure, and wise, in Wisdom’s prophecy.

34. 
’For to my will my fancies were as slaves
To do their sweet and subtile ministries;
And oft from that bright fountain’s shadowy waves
They would make human throngs gather and rise 3130
To combat with my overflowing eyes,
And voice made deep with passion—­thus I grew
Familiar with the shock and the surprise
And war of earthly minds, from which I drew
The power which has been mine to frame their thoughts anew. 3135

35. 
’And thus my prison was the populous earth—­
Where I saw—­even as misery dreams of morn
Before the east has given its glory birth—­
Religion’s pomp made desolate by the scorn
Of Wisdom’s faintest smile, and thrones uptorn, 3140
And dwellings of mild people interspersed
With undivided fields of ripening corn,
And love made free,—­a hope which we have nursed
Even with our blood and tears,—­until its glory burst.