Thou starting-place to a goal yet undefined;
Thou limit clasp’d in no circumference;
Thou tell-tale, in a castle undermined;
Strange tongue, of an uncertain prescience;
Foundation-stone supporting piles of thought;
Thou, Proteus, differing in a self-same soul;
Discoverer of joy, with sorrow fraught;
Thou lively fire, flung from the sullen coal;
The sacred marble shows but one indent
Of penitential kisses, thousandfold,
Yet towers memorial, of sad pilgrims spent,
Of pomps, of pride, of broken hearts and gold:
Like frescoes, born in marble, from one sound,
Lo! multitudinous living shapes abound.