FAR from the pure Castalian fount our feet Have strayed away where daily we unlearn How Truth is one with Beauty. For we turn No more to hear the strains we sprang to greet When we were young, and love and life were sweet Before the world had taught us how to earn Its baser wealth, and from our doors to spurn The Muse like some poor vagabond and cheat. For we are young, and did not see the baits That in the distance lured us down the roads Where Toil and Care and Doubt, those lurking fates, Subdued our pliant backs to alien loads; Till long since deadened to the Poet's tones, They fall on us as rain on logs and stones. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CLOD AND THE PEBBLE, FR. SONGS OF EXPERIENCE by WILLIAM BLAKE A MAN'S REQUIREMENTS by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING EARLY MORN by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES ODE FOR A SOCIAL MEETING, WITH SLIGHT ALTERATIONS BY A TEETOTALER by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES TO SIR HENRY CARY by BEN JONSON THREE FRIENDS OF MINE: 5; SONNET by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW |