Page:Prometheus bound - Browning (1833).djvu/127

 Bowing our high imaginings to eat Dust, like the serpent, once erect as they; Binding conspicuous on our reason's brow Phylacteries of shame; learning to feel By rote, and act by rule, (man's rule, not God's!) Until our words grow echoes, and our thoughts A mechanism of spirit. Can this last? No! not for aye. We cannot subject aye The heav'n-born spirit to the earth-born flesh. Tame lions will scent blood, and appetite Carnivorous glare from out their restless eyes. Passions, emotions, sudden changes, throw Our nature back upon us, till we burn. What warm'd Cyrene's fount? As poets sing, The change from light to dark, from dark to light.

All that doth force this nature back on us, All that doth force the mind to view the mind,