What god will choose me from this labouring nation To worship him afar, with inward gladness, At sunset and at sunrise, in some Persian Garden of roses; Or under the full moon, in rapturous silence, Charmed by the trickling fountain, and the moaning Of the death-hallowed cypress, and the myrtle Hallowed by Venus? O for a chamber in an eastern tower, Spacious and empty, roofed in odorous cedar, A silken soft divan, a woven carpet Rich, many-coloured; A jug that, poised on her firm head, a negress Fetched from the well; a window to the ocean, Lest of the stormy world too deep seclusion Make me forgetful! Thence I might watch the vessel-bearing waters Beat the slow pulses of the life eternal, Bringing of nature's universal travail Infinite echoes; And there at even I might stand and listen To thrum of distant lutes and dying voices Chanting the ditty an Arabian captive Sang to Darius. So would I dream awhile, and ease a little The soul long stifled and the straitened spirit, Tasting new pleasures in a far-off country Sacred to beauty. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...EPICOENE; OR, THE SILENT WOMAN: FREEDOM IN DRESS by BEN JONSON HYMNS OF THE MARSHES: SUNRISE by SIDNEY LANIER A REQUIEM FOR SOLDIERS LOST IN OCEAN TRANSPORTS by HERMAN MELVILLE GARDEN DAYS: 2. NEST EGGS by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON THALIA by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH |