Life wakeful over all knew no gradation That Bliss in its excess became a Dream; For every sense, each thought, & each sensation Lived in my eye, transfigured not supprest. And Time drew out his subtle threads so quick, And with such Spirit-speed & silentness, That only in the web, of space like Time, On the still spreading web I still diffused Lay still commensurate -- For Memory & all undoubting Hope Sang the same note & in the selfsame Voice, with each sweet @3now@1 of my Felicity, and blended momently, Like Milk that coming comes & in its easy stream Flows ever in, upon the mingling milk in the Babe's murmuring Mouth/ or mirrors each reflecting each/ -- What never is but only is to be This is not Life -- O Hopeless Hope, and Death's Hypocrisy! And with perpetual Promise, breaks its Promises. -- The Stars that wont to start, as on a chase, And twinkling insult on Heaven's darkened Face, Like a conven'd Conspiracy of Spies Wink at each other with confiding eyes, Turn from the portent, all is blank on high, No constellations alphabet the Sky -- The Heavens one large black Letter only shews, And as a Child beneath its master's Blows Shrills out at once its Task and its Affright, The groaning world now learns to read aright, And with its Voice of Voices cries out, O! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ONCE BY THE PACIFIC by ROBERT FROST AT CASTERBRIDGE FAIR: 7. AFTER THE FAIR by THOMAS HARDY WRITTEN [OR LINES] IN A YOUNG LADY'S ALBUM by THOMAS HOOD WESTWARD HO! by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER ANACTORIA by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE |