ly to the last faint hope
That bindeth still the once dear to its love,
Rejecting credence whilst a doubt remains,
And so Pygmalion. Thought he, 'tis a phase
Through which her soul doth pass, like rippling streams
That filter for a space through earth's deep pores,
Emerging thence more pure and bright than erst,
And set himself with patient love to watch
The giddy current of her blinded soul,
For the subsidence of its troubled waves.

It came not; till his spirit sick'ning o'er,
Pour'd forth its bitterness and wounded sense.
"Oh! living lie! truth's outward counterfeit!
Fair masquerade of virtue's unknown charms!
Thou too hast perish'd from my trusting soul;
Thy beauty yet endureth, the fair sweep
Of limb and rounded form, such as my art
Can yield the senseless marble; but the soul
That made the work of heaven stand forth alone,
So peerless in its radiant loveliness,
Hath perished 'neath mortality's cold grasp,
And yielded up the patent of its charm.
Henceforth I can compete with Heaven, and fill
My world with bright creations as its own,
Unmarr'd by inner loathsomeness and sin,
That rushing through its pulses like a blight
Make beauty hideous. Thou, my soul, return,
Sit on thy throne, and with creative might
People thy kingdom with a beauteous race,
Fair form'd, and nobly featured, and the life
Set undulating on the Parian,
Whom viewing, thou may'st cry with lofty joy,
'Behold the life without its baser part.'
O Beauty! I have loved thee with full heart,
Follow'd thy shadowy guidance as the cloud
Sails at the unseen steering of the wind;
Sought thee in Heaven and Earth and Nature all,
Led by supreme adorings and desires,
Till by communion with thy perfect soul,
Mine hath grown wise, in measure, to discern.
Not now can I be satiate with grace
That gildeth but the superficial frame
With the false tissue of deep-seeming life;
The searching knife must pierce into the heart,
And shew a frame veined with the same warm stream
That melts in blushes on the downy cheek.
My bright ideal, like the bow of heaven,
Hath faded into nothingness, and made
A blank upon the clouded sky of life.
Can my soul live and love not?

"I will call
Art my divinity, and bid her frame
New joys to cherish such as Earth hath not
Create by natural developement;
Nature shall be my monitress, and te