Messengers, and Recording Angels.]


SHADE OF THE EARTH

What of the Immanent Will and Its designs?


SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

It works unconsciously, as heretofore,
Eternal artistries in Circumstance,
Whose patterns, wrought by rapt aesthetic rote,
Seem in themselves Its single listless aim,
And not their consequence.


CHORUS OF THE PITIES (aerial music)

Still thus? Still thus?
Ever unconscious!
An automatic sense
Unweeting why or whence?
Be, then, the inevitable, as of old,
Although that SO it be we dare not hold!


SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Hold what ye list, fond believing Sprites,