I have sought commune with Adon-Ai; but his presence, that once inspired such heavenly content with knowledge, and so serene a confidence in destiny, now only troubles and perplexes me.

From the height from which I strive to search into the shadows of things to come, I see confused spectres of menace and wrath.

Methinks I behold a ghastly limit to the wondrous existence I have held,--methinks that, after ages of the Ideal Life, I see my course merge into the most stormy whirlpool of the Real.

Where the stars opened to me their gates, there looms a scaffold,--thick steams of blood rise as from a shambles.
What is more strange to me, a creature here, a very type of the false ideal of common men,--body and mind, a hideous mockery of the art that shapes the Beautiful, and the desires that seek the Perfect, ever haunts my vision amidst these perturbed and broken clouds of the fate to be.
By that shadowy scaffold it stands and gibbers at me, with lips dropping slime and gore.

Come, O friend of the far-time; for me, at least, thy wisdom has not purged away thy human affections.