No Man Who Knows Aught, Can Be

Beyond Is All Abyss, Eternity, Whose End No Eye Can Reach.

O Dark, Dark, Dark, Amid The Blaze Of Noon, Irrecoverably Dark, Total Eclipse Without All Hope Of Day!

O Loss Of Sight, Of Thee I Most Complain! Blind Among Enemies, O Worse Than Chains, Dungeon, Or Beggary, Or Decrepit Age!

Alas! What Boots It With Uncessant Care To Tend The Homely Slighted Shepherd's Trade, And Strictly Meditate The Thankless Muse; Were It Not Better Done As Others Use, To Sport With Amaryllis In The Shade, Or With The Tangles Of Neaera's Hair? Fame Is The Spur That The Clear Spirit Doth Raise (that Last Infirmity Of Noble Mind) To Scorn Delights, And Live Laborious Days; But The Fair Guerdon When We Hope To Find, And Think To Burst Out Into Sudden Blaze, Comes The Blind Fury With Th'abhorred Shears, And Slits The Thin-spun Life.

And As An Ev'ning Dragon Came, Assailant On The Perched Roosts And Nests In Order Rang'd Of Tame Villatic Fowl.