The track in which we moved. After brief space, From every form the beauty slowly waned; 66 From every firmest limb and fairest face 520 The strength and freshness fell like dust, and left The action and the shape without the grace "Of life. The marble brow of youth was cleft With care; and in those eyes where once hope shone, Desire, like a lioness bereft "Of her last cub, glared ere it died; each one Of that great crowd sent forth incessantly These shadows, numerous as the dead leaves blown "In autumn evening from a poplar tree. Each like himself and like each other were 530 At first; but some distorted seemed to be "Obscure clouds, moulded by the casual air; And of this stuff the car's creative ray Wrought all the busy phantoms that were there, "As the sun shapes the clouds; thus on the way Mask after mask fell from the countenance And form of all; and long before the day "Was old, the joy which waked like heaven's glance The sleepers in the oblivious valley, died; "And fell, as I have fallen, by the way-side ;Those soonest from whose forms most shadows passed, And least of strength and beauty did abide. 66 'Then, what is life?' I cried." CANCELLED PASSAGE OF THE Out of the eastern shadow of the Earth, In gold and fleecy snow the infant Day, . |