Chapter II: Fact and the Mystic

“Good-morrow, Symbol.”--“_Call me not
The name I neither love nor merit._”
--“That grave eternal name inherit,
Thine ever, though all men forgot.”

“_Mistake me not; secure and free,
From rock to rock my falchion passes:
But Symbols trail through gray morasses
The tattered shows of faëry._”

“My Symbol thou, of phantom blood,
With starlight from thy temples raying;
Along thy floated body playing
Are withering wings, and wings in bud.”

“_Alas, thine eye with clay is sealed._”
--“Symbol, before the clay’s denial,
While yet I had a god’s espial,
I saw thee in a solar field!”

“_Nay: I am Fact._”--“Then lose thy praise;
And lest to-day no song behoove thee,
Lest mine impeach thee, or reprove thee,
Ah, Symbol, Symbol! go thy ways.”