My troubled bosom shall be cinct with pride,
Girdled with red asterias. Is it sin
If I have cast lover and friend aside,
Scorning them as myself who cannot win
The strengths of beauty, the heavenly altitudes?—
O sad and sacred Spirit of Disdain,
What penances upon thine ivory roods
Within the burning Castles of thy pain!—
Thy mystic will no motion ever knew
Outwith the splendid danger of extremes;
Thy sorrowful refusals pass thee through
The great concentrics of star-builded dreams,
Unto the crypt of absolute ecstasy,
To God or Nothing—where thine heart would be.