HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY [Composed, probably, in Switzerland, in the summer of 1816. Published in Hunt's Examiner, January 19, 1817, and with Rosalind and Helen, 1819.] I The awful shadow of some unseen Power ⁠Floats though unseen among us, — visiting ⁠This various world with as inconstant wing As summer winds that creep from flower to flower, — Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,⁠ 5 ⁠It visits with inconstant glance ⁠Each human heart and countenance; Like hues and harmonies of evening, — ⁠Like clouds in starlight widely spread, — ⁠Like memory of music fled, — 10 ⁠Like aught that for its grace may be Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery. II Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate ⁠With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon ⁠Of human thought or form, — where art thou gone?⁠ 15 Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? ⁠Ask why the sunlight not for ever ⁠Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river, Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown,⁠ 20 ⁠Why fear and dream and death and birth ⁠Cast on the daylight of this earth ⁠Such gloom, — why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope? III No voice from some sublimer world hath ever⁠ 25 ⁠To sage or poet these responses given — ⁠Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven, Remain the records of their vain endeavour, Frail spells — whose uttered charm might not avail to sever, ⁠From all we hear and all we see, ⁠30 ⁠Doubt, chance, and mutability. Thy light alone — like mist o'er mountains driven, ⁠Or music by the night-wind sent ⁠Through strings of some still instrument, ⁠Or moonlight on a midnight stream,⁠ 35 Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream. IV Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart ⁠And come, for some uncertain moments lent. ⁠Man were immortal, and omnipotent, Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, ⁠40 Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. ⁠Thou messenger of sympathies, ⁠That wax and wane in lovers' eyes — Thou — that to human thought art nourishment, ⁠Like darkness to a dying flame!⁠ 45 ⁠Depart not as thy shadow came, ⁠Depart not — lest the grave should be, Like life and fear, a dark reality. V While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped ⁠Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,⁠ 50 ⁠And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed; ⁠I was not heard — I saw them not — ⁠When musing deeply on the lot ⁠55 Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing ⁠All vital things that wake to bring ⁠News of birds and blossoming, — ⁠Sudden, thy shadow fell on me; I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy! ⁠60 VI I vowed that I would dedicate my powers ⁠To thee and thine — have I not kept the vow? ⁠With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers ⁠65 ⁠Of studious zeal or love's delight ⁠Outwatched with me the envious night — They know that never joy illumed my brow ⁠Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free ⁠This world from its dark slavery,⁠ 70 ⁠That thou — O awful Loveliness, Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express. VII The day becomes more solemn and serene ⁠When noon is past — there is a harmony ⁠In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, ⁠75 Which through the summer is not heard or seen, As if it could not be, as if it had not been! ⁠Thus let thy power, which like the truth ⁠Of nature on my passive youth ⁠Descended, to my onward life supply⁠ 80 ⁠Its calm — to one who worships thee, ⁠And every form containing thee, ⁠Whom, Spirit fair, thy spells did bind ⁠To fear himself, and love all human kind.