Here let me rest, here nurse the uneasy qualm That yearns within me; And to the heaped-up sea, Sun-spangled in the quiet afternoon, Sing my devotions. In the sun, at the edge of the down, The whin-pods crackle In desultory volleys; And the bank breathes in my face Its hot sweet breath -- Breath that stirs and kindles, Lights that suggest, not satisfy -- Is there never in life or nature An opiate for desire? Has everything here a voice, Saying @3'I am not the goal; Nature is not to be looked at alone; Her breath, like the breath of a mistress, Her breath also, Parches the spirit with longing Sick and enervating longing.'@1 Well, let the matter rest. I rise and brush the windle-straws Off my clothes; and lighting another pipe Stretch myself over the down. Get thee behind me, Nature! I turn my back on the sun And face from the grey new town at the foot of the bay. I know an amber lady Who has her abode At the lips of the street In prisons of coloured glass. I had rather die of her love Than sicken for you, O Nature! Better be drunk and merry Than dreaming awake! Better be Falstaff than Obermann! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WOODSMOKE AT 70 by HAYDEN CARRUTH EACH AND [OR, IN] ALL by RALPH WALDO EMERSON THE EAGLE OF THE BLUE by HERMAN MELVILLE TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP by GEORGE FREDERICK ROOT TO THE STATES. TO IDENTIFY THE 16TH, 17TH, OR 18TH PRESIDENTIAD by WALT WHITMAN |