aught.
Thy life stays in the poems men shall sing, 170
The pictures men shall study; while my life,
Complete and whole now in its power and joy,
Dies altogether with my brain and arm,
Is lost indeed; since, what survives myself?
The brazen statue to o'erlook my grave, 175
Set on the promontory which I named.
And that--some supple courtier of my heir
Shall use its robed and sceptered arm, perhaps,
To fix the rope to, which best drags it down.
I go then: triumph thou, who dost not go!" 180

Nay, thou art worthy of hearing my whole mind.
Is this apparent, when thou turn'st to muse
Upon the scheme of earth and man in chief,
That admiration grows as knowledge grows?
That imperfection means perfection hid, 185
Reserved in part, to grace the after-time?
If, in the morning of philosophy,
Ere aught had been recorded, nay perceived,
Thou, with the light now in thee, couldst have looked
On all earth's tenantry, from worm to bird, 190
Ere man, her last, appeared upon the stage--
Thou wouldst have seen them perfect, and deduced
The perfectness of others yet unseen.
Conceding which--had Zeus then questioned thee,
"Shall I go on a step, improve on this, 195
Do more for visible creatures than is done?"
Thou wouldst have answered, "Aye, by making each
Grow conscious in himself--by that alone.
All's perfect else: the shell sucks fast the rock,
The fish strikes through the sea, the snake both swims 200
And slides, forth range the beasts, the birds take flight,
Till life's mechanics can no further go--
And all this joy in natural life is put
Like fire from off thy finger into each,
So exquisitely perfect is the same. 205
But 'tis pure fire, and they mere matter are;
It has them, not they it: and so I choose
For man, thy last premeditated work
(If I might add a glory to the scheme),
That a third thing should stand apart from both, 210
A quality arise within his soul,
Which, introactive, made to supervise
And feel the force it has, may view itself,
And so be happy." Man might live at first
The animal life: but is there nothing more? 215
In due time, let him critically l