Which the brooding soul surveys
Or ever the wild Time coin'd itself
Into calendar months and days.
This was the lapse of Uriel
Which in Paradise befell.
Once among the Pleiads walking
Sayd overheard the young gods talking；
And the treason too long pent
To his ears was evident.
The young deities discuss'd
Laws of form and metre just
Orb quintessence and sunbeams
What subsisteth and what seems.
One with low tones that decide
And doubt and reverend use defied
With a look that solved the sphere
And stirr'd the devils everywhere
Gave his sentiment divine
Against the being of a line.
'Line in nature is not found；
Unit and universe are round；
In vain produced all rays return；
Evil will bless and ice will burn.'
As Uriel spoke with piercing eye
A shudder ran around the sky；
The stern old war-gods shook their heads；
The seraphs frown'd from myrtle-beds；
Seem'd to the holy festival
The rash word boded ill to all；
The balance-beam of Fate was bent；
The bounds of good and ill were rent；
Strong Hades could not keep his own
But all slid to confusion.
A sad self-knowledge withering fell
On the beauty of Uriel；
In heaven once eminent the god
Withdrew that hour into his cloud；
Whether doom'd to long gyration
In the sea of generation
Or by knowledge grown too bright
To hit the nerve of feebler sight.
Straightway a forgetting wind
Stole over the celestial kind
And their lips the secret kept
If in ashes the fire-seed slept.
But now and then truth-speaking things
Shamed the angels' veiling wings；
And shrilling from the solar course
Or from fruit of chemic force
Procession of a soul in matter
Or the speeding change of water
Or out of the good of evil born
Came Uriel's voice of cherub scorn
And a blush tinged the upper sky
And the gods shook they knew not why.