And make perpetual moan, Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, III. Lo! in the middle of the wood, care, Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light, mellow, Drops in a silent autumn night. The flower ripens in its place, Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on To hear each other's whisper'd speech ; To watch the crispingripples on the beach, To muse and brood and live again in With those old faces of our infancy VI. Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, For surely now our household hearths Our sons inheritus: our looks are strange: And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy. Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no Or else the island princes over-bold toil, Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil. IV. Hateful is the dark-blue sky, Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, In silence; ripen, fall and cease: V. Have eat our substance, and the minstrel How sweet (while warm airs lull us, With half-dropt eyelids still, How sweet it were, hearing the downward To watch the long bright river drawing To watch the emerald-color❜d water falling | Resting weary limbs at last on beds of Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine! Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine, Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the pine. VIII. The Lotos blooms below the barren peak Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone We have had enough of action, and of Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd Blight and famine, plague and earth- asphodel. Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; O rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient | And tale of wrong, Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong; Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; Till they perish and they suffer some, 't is whisper'd down in hell Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, I heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong, And trumpets blown for wars; And clattering flints batter'd with clanging hoofs: And I saw crowds in column'd sanetuaries; And forms that pass'd at windows and on roofs Of marble palaces; Corpses across the threshold; heroes tall |