Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 2.djvu/410

368 LII.

Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love—

Their full divinity inadequate

That feeling to express, or to improve—

The Gods become as mortals—and man's fate

Has moments like their brightest; but the weight

Of earth recoils upon us;—let it go!

We can recall such visions, and create,

From what has been, or might be, things which grow

Into thy statue's form, and look like gods below.

LIII.

I leave to learnéd fingers, and wise hands,

The Artist and his Ape, to teach and tell

How well his Connoisseurship understands

The graceful bend, and the voluptuous swell:

Let these describe the undescribable:

I would not their vile breath should crisp the stream

Wherein that Image shall for ever dwell—

The unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream

That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam.