It visits with inconstant glance
Each human heart and countenance;
Like hues and harmonies of evening,—
Like clouds in starlight widely spread,—
Like memory of music fled,—
Like aught that for its grace may be
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.
2.
Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate
With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon
Of human thought or form,—where art thou gone?
Why dost thou pass away and leave our state,
This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate?
Ask why the sunlight not for ever
Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river,
Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown,
The ‘vale of tears’ is from  Psalm 84.6 , a reference to human tribulation. The phrase ‘this dim, vast, vale of tears’ comprises slow monosyllables, that seem to imitate the dragging feeling of unhappiness; this line has a slow, deliberate ‘tread’.  The alliterative ’d’s and ‘v’s are also heavy and dirge-like.
Hymn To Intellectual Beauty