O sorrow, cruel fellowship! O Priestess in the vaults of Death! O sweet and bitter in a breath, What whispers from thy lying lip?
‘The stars,’ she whispers, ‘blindly run; A web is wov’n across the sky; From out waste places comes a cry, And murmurs from the dying sun:
‘And all the phantom, Nature, stands-- With all her music in her tone, A hollow echo of my own,-- A hollow form with empty hands.’
And shall I take a thing so blind, Embrace her as my natural good; Or crush her, like a vice of blood, Upon the threshold of the mind?