In the winged shape of song with death to play:
To warm young children with its wings,
And try with fire the heart elect for godlike things. 400

For all worst wants of all most miserable [_Str._ 11.
With divine hands to deal
All balms and herbs that heal,
Among all woes whereunder poor men dwell
Our Master sent his servant Love, to be
On earth his witness; but the strange deep sea,
Mother of life and death inextricate,
What work should Love do there, to war with fate?
Yet there must Love too keep
At heart of the eyeless deep 410
Watch, and wage war wide-eyed with all its wonders,
Lower than the lightnings of its waves, and thunders
Of seas less monstrous than the births they bred;
Keep high there heart and head,
And conquer: then for prize of all toils past
Feel the sea close them in again at last.

A day of direr doom arisen thereafter [_Ant._ 11.
With cloud and fire in strife
Lightens and darkens life
Round one by man's hand masked with living laughter, 420
A man by men bemonstered, but by love,
Watched with blind eyes as of a wakeful dove,
And wooed by lust, that in her rosy den
As fire on flesh feeds on the souls of men,
To take the intense impure