'
'They come not here, they have no thought to come,
And thou art here for thou are less than they.'
It is a higher thing to mitigate the pain of the world than to brood
upon the problem of it. And not only the lover of mankind, but man the
animal is pre-eminent above the poet-dreamer. His joy is joy; his pain,
pain. 'Only the dreamer venoms _all_ his days.' Yet the poet has his
reward; it is given to him to partake of the vision of the veiled
Goddess--memory, Moneta, Mnemosyne, the spirit of the eternal reality
made visible.
'Then saw I a wan face
Not pined by human sorrows, but bright-blanch'd
By an immortal sickness which kills not;
It works a constant change, which happy death
Can put no end to; deathwards progressing
To no death was that visage; it had past
The lily and the snow; and beyond these
I must not think now, though I saw that face.
But for her eyes I should have fled away;
They held me back with a benignant light
Soft, mitigated by divinest lids
Half-closed, and visionless entire they seemed
Of all external things; they saw me not,
But in blank splendour beam'd like the mild moon
Who comforts those she sees not, who knows not
What eyes are upward cast.
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