SCORN.
1
Dim on its slighted altar died
The sacred fire no victim fed:
The god, who craved a gift denied,
His own dread image seized instead:
And headlong he hurl'd it the flames among,
Thus choosing rather self-immolation
Than a form that in vain to a faithless throng
From his shrine appeal'd for a grudged oblation.
The flames around it wreathed:
The image was consumed,
And into ashes fell.
The god upon them breathed,
Their fading spark relumed,
And utter'd this oracle:—
2
“Go, dust wherein my power hath dwelt,
Avenge on man a wrong divine,
And the proud pain a god hath felt
In some poor human soul enshrine!”
The roused ashes arose and went forth on the wind:
The divinity hid in them, high and low
Hovering, sought where its force might find
Means to greaten, and grow, and glow.
A soul it found at last,
A great soul wrong'd by fame,
A grandeur grown forlorn:
Into that soul it past
Burningly, and became
Wrong'd Grandeur's angel, Scorn.
