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Orion.
[Book I.
Can to the spirit fashion and expand
Love's own pure rapture and delirium.
To this fixed sublimation there belong
No conflicts of pale doubts, anxieties,
Mean jealousies, anguish of heart-crushed slaves,
And forlorn faces looking out on seas
Of coming madness, from the stony gaps
Through which departed truth and bliss have fled;
But high communion, and a rapturous sense
Of passion's element, whereof all life
Is made ; and therefore life should ne'er attain
A mastery o'er its pure creative light.
Love's own pure rapture and delirium.
To this fixed sublimation there belong
No conflicts of pale doubts, anxieties,
Mean jealousies, anguish of heart-crushed slaves,
And forlorn faces looking out on seas
Of coming madness, from the stony gaps
Through which departed truth and bliss have fled;
But high communion, and a rapturous sense
Of passion's element, whereof all life
Is made ; and therefore life should ne'er attain
A mastery o'er its pure creative light.
Midst chequered sunbeams through the glancing woods
No more Orion hunted; from the dawn
Till eve, within some lonely grot he sat,
His thoughts reviewing, or beneath a rock
Stood, back reclined, and watching the slow clouds,
As doth a shepherd in a vacant mood.
Oft to some highest peak would he ascend,
And gaze below upon his giant friends,
Who looked like moving spots, so dark and small;
And oft, upon some green cliff ledge reclined,
No more Orion hunted; from the dawn
Till eve, within some lonely grot he sat,
His thoughts reviewing, or beneath a rock
Stood, back reclined, and watching the slow clouds,
As doth a shepherd in a vacant mood.
Oft to some highest peak would he ascend,
And gaze below upon his giant friends,
Who looked like moving spots, so dark and small;
And oft, upon some green cliff ledge reclined,
