THE Woods decay, the woods decay and fall, The vapors weep their burden to the ground, Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, And after many a summer dies the swan. Me only cruel immortality
Consumes; I wither slowly in thine arms, Here at the quiet limit of the world,
A white-haired shadow roaming like a dream The ever-silent spaces of the East, Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn. Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man- So glorious in his beauty and thy choice, Who madest him thy chosen, that he seemed To his great heart none other than a god! I asked thee, "Give me immortality." Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile, Like wealthy men who care not how they give. But thy strong Hours indignant worked their wills, And beat me down and marred and wasted me, And though they could not end me, left me maimed
To dwell in presence of immortal youth, Immortal age beside immortal youth, And all I was, in ashes. Can thy love, Thy beauty, make amends, though even now, Close over us, the silver star, thy guide, Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears To hear me? Let me go: take back thy gift: Why should a man desire in any way To vary from the kindly race of men, Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance
Where all should pause, as is most meet for all?
A soft air fans the cloud apart; there comes A glimpse of that dark world where I was born. Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders
And bosom beating with a heart renewed.
Ay me! ay me! with what another heart In days far-off, and with what other eyes I used to watch - if I be he that watched The lucid outline forming round thee; saw The dim curls kindle into sunny rings; Changed with thy mystic change, and felt my blood
Glow with the glow that slowly crimsoned all Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay,
| Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy-warm With kisses balmier than half-opening buds Of April, and could hear the lips that kissed Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet, Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing, While Ilion like a mist rose into towers.
Yet hold me not forever in thine East: How can my nature longer mix with thine? Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam Floats up from these dim fields about the homes
Of happy men that have the power to die, And grassy barrows of the happier dead. Release me, and restore me to the ground: Thou seest all things, thou wilt see my grave; Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn; I earth in earth forget these empty courts, And thee returning on thy silver wheels.
Ir little profits that, an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads-you and I are old. Old age hath yet his honor and his toil; Death closes all: but something, ere the end,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea: I am become a name.; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honored of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades Forever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved. From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were. For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire · To follow knowledge, like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. This is my son, mine own Telemachus, To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil This labor, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and through soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good. Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail In offices of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail : There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, "Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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