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| THE SUN is warm, the sky is clear, | |
| The waves are dancing fast and bright, | |
| Blue isles and snowy mountains wear | |
| The purple noon’s transparent might; | |
| The breath of the moist earth is light, | 5 |
| Around its unexpanded buds; | |
| Like many a voice of one delight, | |
| The winds, the birds, the ocean floods, | |
| The city’s voice itself is soft like solitude’s. | |
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| I see the deep’s untrampled floor | 10 |
| With green and purple sea-weeds strown; | |
| I see the waves upon the shore, | |
| Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown; | |
| I sit upon the sands alone, | |
| The lightning of the noontide ocean | 15 |
| Is flashing round me, and a tone | |
| Arises from its measured motion, | |
| How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion. | |
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| Alas! I have nor hope nor health, | |
| Nor peace within nor calm around, | 20 |
| Nor that content surpassing wealth, | |
| The sage in meditation found, | |
| And walked with inward glory crowned,— | |
| Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. | |
| Others I see whom these surround; | 25 |
| Smiling they live, and call life pleasure; | |
| To me that cup has been dealt in another measure. | |
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| Yet now despair itself is mild, | |
| Even as the winds and waters are; | |
| I could lie down like a tired child, | 30 |
| And weep away the life of care | |
| Which I have borne, and yet must bear, | |
| Till death like sleep might steal on me, | |
| And I might feel in the warm air | |
| My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea | 35 |
| Breathe o’er my dying brain its last monotony. | |
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| Some might lament that I were cold, | |
| As I when this sweet day is gone, | |
| Which my lost heart, too soon grown old, | |
| Insults with this untimely moan; | 40 |
| They might lament,—for I am one | |
| Whom men love not,—and yet regret, | |
| Unlike this day, which, when the sun | |
| Shall on its stainless glory set, | |
| Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet. | 45 |
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