WHO can determine the frontier of Pleasure? Who can distinguish the limit of Pain? Where is the moment the feeling to measure? When is experience repeated again? Ye who have felt the delirium of passion -- Say, can ye sever its joys and its pangs? Is there a power in calm contemplation To indicate each upon each as it hangs? I would believe not; -- for spirit will languish While sense is most blest and creation most bright; And life will be dearer and clearer in anguish Than ever was felt in the throbs of delight. See the Fakeer as he swings on his iron, See the thin Hermit that starves in the wild; Think ye no pleasures the penance environ, And hope the sole bliss by which pain is beguiled? No! in the kingdoms those spirits are reaching, Vain are our words the emotions to tell; Vain the distinctions our senses are teaching, For Pain has its Heaven and Pleasure its Hell! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HOMAGE TO SEXTUS PROPERTIUS: 2 by EZRA POUND LONDON, FR. SONGS OF EXPERIENCE by WILLIAM BLAKE TO MUSIC [TO BECALM HIS FEVER] by ROBERT HERRICK BURIAL OF THE MINNISINK by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW SONNET: THE EVENING STAR by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW LYDIA (1) by LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE A SUPPLEMENT OF AN IMPERFECT COPY OF VERSES OF MR. WILL. SHAKESPEARE'S by JOHN SUCKLING |