O prison of souls lost, abandoned, dead,
Time cannot crumble! and the captives there
Lay the base courses, and themselves immure.
Deep sink thy founding piers; thy mighty girth
Doth man encompass; thou shalt reach to heaven!
Life after life, race after dying race,
Mine thy dark quarry, hew the living block,
Lift the long work, a generation's toil—
Strong art thou built, O thou Eternal Stone!
As one who lies submerged in shallow sleep,
Whose thoughts interminably stream along,
No choice, no purpose, no volition his,
He drifted masterless, no respite given,
No lovely thing to steal him from himself;
And round his heart while weaker grew his strength,
Some strangling evil clutched, and seemed to rise,
A shuddering coil, and breathed upon his brain.
So like a man who sees not, on he went,
Stumbling to death; and low he heard him sing
Who of the heart's voice makes his falsest lie:
"Of all the Immortals kind was only He
Who on the fringes of the eye hung sleep,
And with death's stolen dew made sweet the lips!
