I

In my childhood I was belovèd by the Muses nine,

Who with Poesie’s soft incense did seed

The redolent-soilèd daedal garden of thine:

O thou! Shall I be charioted by Hope’s steed

That goeth amain as the untamed west

Down the path of swift Eternity,

To woo, o’er hill and dale, whose Aurora’s beam!

That thou, an orb peerless ofttimes oppressed

By the purpureal lids of the austere Reality,

Art the brightest, hight IMMORTAL DREAM.

II

As a sweet Naïad is in Phlegethic rill,

So is thy shadow in Reality’s empery sunless.

Art thou but April’s fleeting sunbeams, that will

Be anon in a shroud of weeping forlornness?

Or, art thou like a full-blown rose

Flushing in June, the delight that must exit,

With fallen witherèd petals gathered up by no hand?

Why dost thou not to my light disclose:

I, with fatiguèd eyes, – a missionèd spirit,

Cast round for thee, from thorns to cloudland...

III

I start away ere the hot sun counts

His dewy rosary on the eglantine: away,

Faring thro’ fragrant wilds and verdant mounts,

With no ear to hear ruby-breasted linnets’ roundelay,

Nor eye to see the sapphire heaven’s repose deep,

To tryst with thee, alas! alas! who

Comest not e’en with the gloaming,

When the sky will sleep his dark-lidded sleep.

Mine eyes marred by the mists of pain, – woe

Is to me! – on I wait, alone and palely loitering.

                                IV

Where art thou gone? Whitherward hast

Thou turned aside? O thou yearning to my core,

So tender that it may not last;

O thou Elysian asphodel, too fair for

Any mortal to see or hold his heart’s delight!

Where? Oh, where? At the Temple of Fame linger’st?

Or to the dales of Arcady dost retire?

As darling buds of May, howe’er gladsome and bright,

Shall bid the boughs adieu, e’en the dearest

Like thou must leave me, who dolorously suspire.

V

’Tis almost Life’s highest bliss whenso

I am with thee... whom now I do espy,

A sweet phantom, beyond the perilous billow.

Away! away! For sail thro’ must I

Yon virescent unfathomable flood to thee find,

Thou queen of mysteries, Beauty veilèd afar!

Eastwards I turn – my way is e’en harder;

Onwards I wend – alas! thou art far behind;

Heavenwards I gaze... lo, thou! Phœbe’s sapphire-regionèd star,

Hangest aloft the welkin, in lone splendour.