What use is action? We have thought until
The world is but the shadow of our dreams.
What if the sap in all the gardens teems,
Sunk back upon itself is our limp will.
The mind has ravaged space, and we are ill
With what we know; yet knowledge only seems,
Upon life's verge a net of cheating gleams;
And my possessions leave me tired and chill.
But thou alone, O torch of sacred Art,
With first, primeval beauty warm the heart,
And flash thy multiple glimpses of the Ideal;
And thou, O Poet, make lost Eden shine
Within us, and behind the seeming real
Show us the essences of things divine.