Elysian beauty, melancholy grace, Brought from a pensive though a happy place. He spake of love, such love as spirits feel In worlds whose course is equable and pure; No fears to beat away no strife to heal The past unsighed for, and the future sure; Spake of heroic arts in graver mood Revived, with finer harmony pursued; Of all that is most beauteousimaged there In happier beauty; more pellucid streams, An ampler ether, a diviner air, And fields invested with purpureal gleams; Climes which the sun, who sheds the brightest day Earth knows, is all unworthy to survey. Yet there the soul shall enter which hath earned That privilege by virtue.“ Ill,” said he, "The end of man's existence I discerned, Who from ignoble games and revelry Could draw, when we had parted, vain delight, While tears were thy best pastime, day and night: "And while my youthful peers, before my eyes (Each hero following his peculiar bent), Prepared themselves for glorious enterprise By martial sports, or, seated in the tent, Chieftains and kings in council were detained; What time the fleet at Aulis lay enchained. "The wished-for wind was given: I then revolved Our future course, upon the silent sea; ity." Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile, Like wealthy men who care not how they give, But thy strong Hours indignant worked their wills, And beat me down and marred and wasted me, And though they could not end me, left me maimed To dwell in presence of immortal youth, Immortal age beside immortal youth, And all I was, in ashes. Can thy love, Thy beauty, make amends, though even now, Close over us, the silver star, thy guide, Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears To hear me? Let me go: take back thy gift: Why should a man desire in any way To vary from the kindly race of men, Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance Where all should pause, as is most meet for all? A soft air fans the cloud apart; there comes A glimpse of that dark world where I was born. Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix forever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock, And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. Yet not to thy eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone- - nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world, -with kings, The powerful of the earth, — the wise, the good, Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages |