And utterly consumed with sharp distress,

While all things else have rest from weariness?

All things have rest: why should we toil alone,

We only toil, who are the first of things, And make perpetual moan,

Still from one sorrow to another thrown; Nor ever fold our wings,

And cease from wanderings,

Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm;

Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, "There is no joy but calm!'

Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?

VII

But, propped on beds of amaranth and moly,

How sweet-while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly

With half-dropped eyelid still,
Beneath a heaven dark and holy,
To watch the long bright river drawing
slowly

His waters from the purple hill-
To hear the dewy echoes calling

From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine

To watch the emerald-color'd water falling

Thro' many a woven 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, The Lotos blows by every winding creek;

All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone;

Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.

We have had enough of action, and of motion we,

Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free, Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea. Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,

In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined

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

Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world; Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,

Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,

Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands. But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song

Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient 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,

Resting weary limbs at last on beds of 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. 1832, 1842.

I started once, or seem'd to start in pain, Resolved on noble things, and strove to speak,

As when a great thought strikes along the brain

And flushes all the cheek.

And once my arm was lifted to hew down A cavalier from off his saddle-bow, That bore a lady from a leaguer'd town; And then, I know not how,

All those sharp fancies, by down-lapsing thought

Stream'd onward, lost their edges, and did creep

Roll'd on each other, rounded, smooth'd, and brought

Into the gulfs of sleep.

Of the other; with a worm I balk'd his fame.

What else was left? look here! "

With that she tore her robe apart, and half

The polish'd argent of her breast to sight

Laid bare. Thereto she pointed with a laugh,

Showing the aspic's bite.

"I died a Queen. The Roman soldier found

Me lying dead, my crown about my brows,

A name for ever!-lying robed and crown'd

Worthy a Roman spouse."

Her warbling voice, a lyre of widest range

Struck by all passion, did fall down and glance

From tone to tone, and glided thro' all change

Of liveliest utterance.

When she made pause I knew not for delight;

Because with sudden motion from the ground

She raised her piercing orbs, and fill'd with light

The interval of sound.

Still with their fires Love tipt his keenest darts:

As once they drew into two burning rings

All beams of Love, melting the mighty hearts

Of captains and of kings.

Slowly my sense undazzled. Then I heard A noise of some one coming thro' the lawn,

And singing clearer than the crested bird

That claps his wings at dawn:

"The torrent brooks of hallow'd Israel From craggy hollows pouring, late and soon,

Sound all night long, in falling thro' the dell,

Far-heard beneath the moon.

"The balmy moon of blessed Israel Floods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine;