Uriel

    Which the brooding soul surveys

    Or ever the wild Time coin'd itself

    Into calendar months and days.

    This was the lapse of Uriel

    Which in Paradise befell.

    Once among the Pleiads walking

    Sayd overheard the young gods talking；

    And the treason too long pent

    To his ears was evident.

    The young deities discuss'd

    Laws of form and metre just

    Orb quintessence and sunbeams

    What subsisteth and what seems.

    One with low tones that decide

    And doubt and reverend use defied

    With a look that solved the sphere

    And stirr'd the devils everywhere

    Gave his sentiment divine

    Against the being of a line.

    'Line in nature is not found；

    Unit and universe are round；

    In vain produced all rays return；

    Evil will bless and ice will burn.'

    As Uriel spoke with piercing eye

    A shudder ran around the sky；

    The stern old war-gods shook their heads；

    The seraphs frown'd from myrtle-beds；

    Seem'd to the holy festival

    The rash word boded ill to all；

    The balance-beam of Fate was bent；

    The bounds of good and ill were rent；

    Strong Hades could not keep his own

    But all slid to confusion.

    A sad self-knowledge withering fell

    On the beauty of Uriel；

    In heaven once eminent the god

    Withdrew that hour into his cloud；

    Whether doom'd to long gyration

    In the sea of generation

    Or by knowledge grown too bright

    To hit the nerve of feebler sight.

    Straightway a forgetting wind

    Stole over the celestial kind

    And their lips the secret kept

    If in ashes the fire-seed slept.

    But now and then truth-speaking things

    Shamed the angels' veiling wings；

    And shrilling from the solar course

    Or from fruit of chemic force

    Procession of a soul in matter

    Or the speeding change of water

    Or out of the good of evil born

    Came Uriel's voice of cherub scorn

    And a blush tinged the upper sky

    And the gods shook they knew not why.