Twice now that lucid fiction of the pane 
dissolves, the sphere that winter's crystal bane 
still-charm'd to glass the sad metempsychose 
and futile ages of the suffering rose ? 
what, in its halt, the weary mood might show. 
Earth stirs in me that stirs with roots below, 
and distant nerves shrink with the lilac mist 
of perfume blossom'd round the lure that, kist, 
is known hard burn o'erflaked and cruel sting. 
I would this old illusion of the spring 
might perish once with all her airs that fawn 
and traitor roses of the wooing dawn: 
for none hath known the magic dream of gold 
come sooth, since that first surge of light outroll'd 
heroic, broke the august and mother sleep 
and foam'd, and azure was the rearward deep; 
and Eden afloat among the virgin boughs 
fused, song-jewel sudden, and flesh was blithe with vows 
to tread, divine, under the naked air; 
nor knew, alas! self-doom'd thro' time to bear 
lewd summer's dusty mock and roses' fall, 
and cynic spring, returning, virginal. 

Chimaera writhes beside the tragic flame 
of the old hearth: her starting jaws proclaim, 
a silent cry, the craven world's attaint. 
Her vans that beat against a hard constraint 
leaps, as the coals jet in a moment-spasm: 
yet their taut ribs hurt not the serpent chasm 
of shade, that slips swift to its absent den, 
to settle, grimlier, at her throat again. 
And, starward were their prison-roof increas'd, 
no sun that bathes him for a dewy east 
would light her mail, above the tainted air 
a meteor-dazzling gem, but the red flare 
kindle disastrous on our burning eyes 
from where the sullen embers agonize, 
once the heart's rose-flusht dream of living gold. 
Therefore her croup, thro' many a lapsing fold, 
is bound into the iron's night, to check 
the frenzy that contorts her charging neck: 
her life is flitting with the fitful red 
splashing her flank as 'twere her courage bled 
to curdle with the void, whose metal-cold 
shall seal her gone, a block no art shall mould. 
And now the shining tongues that sprang to lick 
the obscene blackness in are tarnisht thick: 
insidiously thro' each blank pane the dark 
invades from space, vast cemetery: one spark 
flies up, the lessen'd ghost of flame: her flight 
stiffens, and is a settled piece of night.