Page:Rosalind and Helen (Shelley, Forman).djvu/70

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 * It visits with inconstant glance
 * Each human heart and countenance;

Like hues and harmonies of evening,—
 * Like clouds in starlight widely spread,—
 * Like memory of music fled,—
 * Like aught that for its grace may be

Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.

Spirit of, that dost consecrate
 * With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon
 * Of human thought or form, where art thou gone?

Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate?
 * Ask why the sunlight not forever
 * Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river;

Why aught should fail and fade that once is shewn;
 * Why fear and dream and death and birth
 * Cast on the daylight of this earth
 * Such gloom, why man has such a scope

For love and hate, despondency and hope?

No voice from some sublimer world hath ever
 * To sage or poet these responses given:
 * Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven,

Remain the records of their vain endeavour: Frail spells, whose uttered charm might not avail to sever,
 * From all we hear and all we see.
 * Doubt, chance, and mutability.

Thy light alone, like mist o'er mountains driven,