BUT yesterday was Man from Eden driven. His dream, wherein he dreamed himself the first Of creatures, fashioned for eternity -- This was the Eden that he shared with Eve. Eve, the adventurous soul within his soul! The sleepless, the unslaked! She showed him where Amidst his pleasance hung the bough whose fruit Is disenchantment and the perishing Of many glorious errors. And he saw His paradise how narrow: and he saw, -- He, who had well-nigh deemed the world itself Of less significance and majesty Than his own part and business in it! -- how Little that part, and in how great a world. And an imperative world-thirst drave him forth, And the gold gates of Eden clanged behind. Never shall he return: for he hath sent His spirit abroad among the infinitudes, And may no more to the ancient pales recall The travelled feet. But oftentimes he feels The intolerable vastness bow him down, The awful homeless spaces daunt his soul; And half-regretful he remembers then His Eden lost, as some grey mariner May think of the far fields where he was bred, And woody ways unbreathed-on by the sea, Though more familiar now the ocean-paths Gleam, and the stars his fathers never knew. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...UPON THE SAYING THAT MY VERSES WERE MADE BY ANOTHER by ANNE KILLIGREW YARROW UNVISITED by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH EMBLEMS OF LOVE: 16. CUPID HIMSELF STUNG by PHILIP AYRES ON RECEIPT OF A RARE PIPE by W. H. B. INFLUENCE by BELLE BEARDEN BARRY |