The evil, and the barren, and the vile,
In God's undying
smile
!
Stoop
not, O stoop
not,
to yon splendid world,
Yon darkly-splendid,
airless,
void, inane,
Blind confines in stupendous horror curled,
The sleepless
place of Terror and distress.
Luring damned souls with lying loveliness,
The Habitation
and the House of Pain.
For that
is their abode,
the Wretched
Ones,
Of all unhappiness the sons
!
And when, invoking
often,
thou shalt see
That formless Fire ; when all the earth
is shaken,
The stars abide not, and the moon is gone,
All Time crushed back into Eternity,
The Universe
by earthquake overtaken
;
Light is not, and the thunders roll.
The World
is done :
When in the darkness Chaos rolls again
In the excited brain
:
Then, O then call not to thy view that visible
Image of Nature
; fatal
is her name
!
It fitteth not thy body to behold
That living light of Hell,
The unluminous,
dead
flame.
Until that body from the crucible
Hath passed,
pure gold
!
119