A Character

With a half-glance upon the sky

At night he said, "The wanderings

Of this most intricate universe

Teach me the nothingness of things."

Yet could not all creation pierce

Beyond the bottom of his eye.

He spake of beauty: that the dull

Saw no divinity in grass,

Life in dead stones, or spirit in air;

Then looking as 'twere in a glass,

He smoothed his chin and sleeked his hair,

And said the earth was beautiful.

He spake of virtue: not the gods

More purely, when they wish to charm

Pallas and Juno sitting by:

And with a sweeping of the arm,

And a lacklustre deadblue eye,

Devolved his rounded periods.

Most delicately hour by hour

He canvassed human mysteries,

And trod on silk, as if the winds

Blew his own praises in his eyes,

And stood aloof from other minds

In impotence of fancied power.

With lips depressed as he were meek,

Himself unto himself he sold:

Upon himself himself did feed:

Quiet, dispassionate, and cold,

And other than his form of creed,

With chiselled features clear and sleek.