Is there any season, O my soul, When the sources of bitter tears dry up, And the uprooted flowers take their places again Along the torrent bed? Could I wish to live, it would be for that season, To repose my limbs and press my temples there. But should I not speedily start away In the hope to trace and follow thy steps! Thou art gone, thou art gone, Praxinoe! And hast taken far from me thy lovely youth, Leaving me naught that was desirable in mine. Alas! alas! what hast thou left me? The helplessness of childhood, the solitude of age, The laughter of the happy, the pity of the scorner, A colourless and broken shadow am I, Seen glancing in troubled waters. My thoughts too are scattered; thou hast cast them off; They beat against thee, they would cling to thee, But they are viler than the loose dark weeds, Without a place to root or rest in. I would throw them across my lyre; they drop from it; My lyre will sound only two measures; That Pity will never, never come, Or come to the sleep that awakeneth not unto her. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO R. B. by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS THE MEN BEHIND THE GUNS by JOHN JEROME ROONEY A RECIPE FOR SALAD by SYDNEY SMITH A SUMMER NIGHT by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS EPISTLE TO DR. ENFIELD ON HIS REVISITING WARRINGTON IN 1789 by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD THE MAID OF ARC; FOR M. S. M. by GORDON BOTTOMLEY EPISTLE FROM ONE ABSENT EDITOR TO ANOTHER by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD CREOLE SLAVE SONG: THE SONG OF CAYETANO'S CIRCUS by GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE |