FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71  
72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   >>  
efly all my joy and pain. I was a fisher once, upon this main, 320 And my boat danc'd in every creek and bay; Rough billows were my home by night and day,-- The sea-gulls not more constant; for I had No housing from the storm and tempests mad, But hollow rocks,--and they were palaces Of silent happiness, of slumberous ease: Long years of misery have told me so. Aye, thus it was one thousand years ago. One thousand years!--Is it then possible To look so plainly through them? to dispel 330 A thousand years with backward glance sublime? To breathe away as 'twere all scummy slime From off a crystal pool, to see its deep, And one's own image from the bottom peep? Yes: now I am no longer wretched thrall, My long captivity and moanings all Are but a slime, a thin-pervading scum, The which I breathe away, and thronging come Like things of yesterday my youthful pleasures. "I touch'd no lute, I sang not, trod no measures: I was a lonely youth on desert shores. 341 My sports were lonely, 'mid continuous roars, And craggy isles, and sea-mew's plaintive cry Plaining discrepant between sea and sky. Dolphins were still my playmates; shapes unseen Would let me feel their scales of gold and green, Nor be my desolation; and, full oft, When a dread waterspout had rear'd aloft Its hungry hugeness, seeming ready ripe To burst with hoarsest thunderings, and wipe 350 My life away like a vast sponge of fate, Some friendly monster, pitying my sad state, Has dived to its foundations, gulph'd it down, And left me tossing safely. But the crown Of all my life was utmost quietude: More did I love to lie in cavern rude, Keeping in wait whole days for Neptune's voice, And if it came at last, hark, and rejoice! There blush'd no summer eve but I would steer My skiff along green shelving coasts, to hear 360 The shepherd's pipe come clear from aery steep, Mingled with ceaseless bleatings of his sheep: And never was a day of summer shine, But I beheld its birth upon the brine: For I would watch all night to see unfold Heaven's gates, and AEthon snort his morning gold Wide o'er the swelling streams: and constantly At brim of day-tide, on some grassy lea, My nets would be spread out, and I at rest. The poor folk of the sea-country I blest
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71  
72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   >>  



Top keywords:

thousand

 

lonely

 

breathe

 

summer

 

safely

 

Keeping

 

cavern

 

utmost

 

quietude

 

tossing


hungry
 

hugeness

 

waterspout

 
desolation
 

hoarsest

 

pitying

 

monster

 

friendly

 
thunderings
 

sponge


foundations

 

morning

 
streams
 

swelling

 

AEthon

 
unfold
 

Heaven

 

constantly

 

country

 

spread


grassy
 

shelving

 
rejoice
 
Neptune
 

coasts

 

bleatings

 

ceaseless

 

beheld

 

Mingled

 

shepherd


slumberous
 

happiness

 

misery

 

sublime

 
glance
 

scummy

 

backward

 

plainly

 

dispel

 
silent