Chapter XLI: The Virtue of Pride

My troubled bosom shall be cinct with pride, Girdled with red asterias. Is it sin If I have cast lover and friend aside, Scorning them as myself who cannot win The strengths of beauty, the heavenly altitudes?-- O sad and sacred Spirit of Disdain, What penances upon thine ivory roods Within the burning Castles of thy pain!-- Thy mystic will no motion ever knew Outwith the splendid danger of extremes; Thy sorrowful refusals pass thee through The great concentrics of star-builded dreams, Unto the crypt of absolute ecstasy, To God or Nothing--where thine heart would be.