Oh, mind of man, whose thoughts with travel sore
Cannot arrive the ground where simple sense
In the beginning stood: thou, who the more
Thou strivest in the sum of things immense,
The less achieving, seest that centre firm,
Where thou wouldst plant thy footing, to move thence
Crumbling resolve itself from term to term,
And leave unsure the measure that remains:
Thou, taking thought, canst not thyself confirm
Thou canst not from the incorporeal plains
Of the old atomic chaos separate
Thyself: not that contained from that contains
Nothing canst thou by thought discriminate;
For all is one and one is all by thought,
And motion cannot be in nature's state.
But by the senses winged, thou sett'st at nought
The halting intellect: and at a bound
Reachest thy ends, which else were never raught.
Thy deeds and being thought would fain confound,
And call not possible: but thou dost live,
Nor knowest thyself by mockeries wrapped and wound
So great a might to thee the senses give.
But when, cut off from sense, in sleep sopite,
The soul, not sensible, but sensitive,
Takes her own instruments, of finer might
Than eye or ear, though fashioned to the same
Of purpose, then she sees further than sight,
Hears more than sound: then doth her skill acclaim
O'er moveless thought her wider victories:
Then, if she sport, she maketh better game,
And boldly spreads the shows she doth devise:
Or if to heaviness her mood be bent,
Being perplexed or troubled anywise,
More swiftly then by her the cloud is rent
Which bears the thundrous store of threatening fate:
For past and last future to her present.
So to the coming evil gave the date
That dream predictive, which the noble knight
Told to my ears, and did the same debate.
The heads of things to come in wavering light
Moved up and down therein, as on the wall
Beyond my bed the arras shook in sight;
And its inwoven heads did rise and fall
Above the wood-fire's smoke invisible,
Which made them quiver and grow dim withal.
Sad grew my heart to hear what he did tell,
But sadder, when he said, " I must be gone:
Therefore, dear fellow, bid I thee farewell:
" But have no fear, I shall return anon;
For, as it seems to me, I soon shall find
Diantha, whom our quest is set upon
" But this may be to hurt: for to my mind
The thing that I have met seems verily
To show success to us, with harm behind. "
Then bade I him to go, sith what must be
None may prevent: and from my chamber door
He passed: and soon was armed: and forth went he,
Whom living on this earth I saw no more.