O When Meet Now Such Pairs, In

How Sweetly Did They Float Upon The Wings Of Silence Through The Empty-vaulted Night, At Every Fall Smoothing The Raven Down Of Darkness Till It Smiled!

O Impotence Of Mind, In Body Strong! But What Is Strength Without A Double Share Of Wisdom, Vast, Unwieldy, Burdensome, Proudly Secure, Yet Liable To Fall By Weakest Subtleties, Not Made To Rule, But To Subserve Where Wisdom Bears Command.

As Therefore The State Of Man Now Is, What Wisdom Can There Be To Choose, What Continence To Forbear, Without The Knowledge Of Good And Evil?

Virtue Could See To Do What Virtue Would By Her Own Radiant Light, Though Sun And Moon Where In The Flat Sea Sunk.

O Dark, Dark, Dark, Amid The Blaze Of Noon, Irrecoverably Dark, Total Eclipse Without All Hope Of Day!