Chapter XV

From my sick-bed gazing upon the west,
Where all the bright effulgences of day
Lay steeped in sunless vapours, raw and grey,--
Herein (methought) is mournfully exprest
The end of false ambitions, sullen doom
Of my brave hopes, Promethean desires:
Barren and perfumeless, my name expires
Like summer-day setting in joyless gloom.
Yet faint I not in sceptical dismay,
Upheld by the belief that all pure thought
Is deathless, perfect: that the truths out-wrought
By the laborious mind cannot decay,
Being evolutions of that Sovereign Mind
Akin to man’s; yet orbed, exhaustless, undefined.