Page:Prometheus bound - Browning (1833).djvu/118

 For there had battled in her solitudes, Contrary spirits; sympathy with power, And stooping unto power;—the energy And passiveness,—the thunder and the death!

Within me was a nameless thought: it closed The Janus of my soul on echoing hinge, And said 'Peace!' with a voice like War's. I bow'd And trembled at its voice; it gave a key, Empower'd to open out all mysteries Of soul and flesh; of man, who doth begin, But endeth not; of life, and after life. Day came at last: her light show'd gray and sad, As hatch'd by tempest, and could scarce prevail Over the shaggy forest to imprint Its outline on the sky—expressionless, Almost sans shadow as sans radiance: An idiocy of light. I waken'd from