Chapter I

Once, where the unentered Temple stood, at noon
No sun-ray pierced the dim unwindowed aisle;
And all the flooding whiteness of the moon
Could only bathe the outer peristyle.

And as we passed we praised the Temple front;
But one went in; with careless feet he trod
The long-forgotten pavement moss’d and blunt
And found the altar of the unprayed-to God.

He reached and lit the tapers of the shrine
And let their radiance flood the vault obscure;
But ah! upon what evil things to shine,
Blind, crawling, chill, discoloured, and impure.

And as the Light burns clearer through the gloom,
More foul, more deathly, shows the illumined room.