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ARTIST, whose hand, with horror wing’d, hath torn From the rank life of towns this leaf: and flung The prodigy of full-blown crime among Valleys and men to middle fortune born, Not innocent, indeed, yet not forlorn: Say, what shall calm us, when such guests intrude, Like comets on the heavenly solitude? Shall breathless glades, cheer’d by shy Dian’s horn. Cold-bubbling springs, or caves? Not so! The Soul Breasts her own griefs: and, urg’d too fiercely, says: ‘Why tremble? True, the nobleness of man May be by man effac’d: man can control To pain, to death, the bent of his own days. Know thou the worst. So much, not more, he can.’ |