Xliii

Elvire, will you partake in what I shall impart? I seem to understand the way heart chooses heart By help of the outside form,--a reason for our wild Diversity in choice,--why each grows reconciled To what is absent, what superfluous in the mask Of flesh that 's meant to yield,--did nature ply her task As artist should,--precise the features of the soul, Which, if in any case they found expression, whole I' the traits, would give a type, undoubtedly display A novel, true, distinct perfection in its way. Never shall I believe any two souls were made Similar; granting, then, each soul of every grade Was meant to be itself, prove in itself complete, And, in completion, good,--nay, best o' the kind,--as meet Needs must it be that show on the outside correspond With inward substance,--flesh, the dress which soul has donned, Exactly reproduce,--were only justice done Inside and outside too,--types perfect every one. How happens it that here we meet a mystery Insoluble to man, a plaguy puzzle? Why Each soul is either made imperfect, and deserves As rude a face to match; or else a bungler swerves, And nature, on a soul worth rendering aright, Works ill, or proves perverse, or, in her own despite, --Here too much, there too little,--bids each face, more or less, Retire from beauty, make approach to ugliness? And yet succeeds the same: since, what is wanting to success, If somehow every face, no matter how deform, Evidence, to some one of hearts on earth, that, warm Beneath the veriest ash, there hides a spark of soul Which, quickened by love's breath, may yet pervade the whole O' the gray, and, free again, be fire?--of worth the same, Howe'er produced, for, great or little, flame is flame. A mystery, whereof solution is to seek.