LII.
Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love—[1][2]
Their full divinity inadequate
That feeling to express, or to improve—
The Gods become as mortals—and man's fate[3]
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.
- ↑ Glowing and all-diffused——.—[MS. M. erased.]
- ↑ [As the immortals, for love's sake, divest themselves of their godhead, so do mortals, in the ecstasy of passion, recognize in the object of their love the incarnate presence of deity. Love, like music, can raise a "mortal to the skies" and "bring an angel down." In this stanza there is, perhaps, an intentional obscurity in the confusion of ideas, which are "thrown out" for the reader to shape for himself as he will or can.]
- ↑ ——and our Fate.—[MS. M.]
