f thy spirit!
With the years of the youth and the hairs of the hoary,
I sit like a shadow outside of thy glory;
Nor look with the morning-like feelings, O river,
That illumined the boy in the days gone for ever!

Ah! sad are the sounds of old ballads which borrow
One-half of their grief from the listener's sorrow;
And sad are the eyes of the pilgrim who traces
The ruins of Time in revisited places;
But sadder than all is the sense of his losses
That cometh to one when a sudden age crosses
And cripples his manhood. So, stricken by fate, I
Felt older at thirty than some do at eighty.

Because I believe in the beautiful story,
The poem of Greece in the days of her glory--
That the high-seated Lord of the woods and the waters
Has peopled His world with His deified daughters--
That flowerful forests and waterways streaming
Are gracious with goddesses glowing and gleaming--
I pray that thy singing divinity, fairer
Than wonderful women, may listen, Narrara!

O spirit of sea-going currents!--thou, being
The child of immortals, all-knowing, all-seeing--
Thou hast at thy heart the dark truth that I borrow
For the song that I sing thee, no fanciful sorrow;
In the sight of thine eyes is the history written
Of Love smitten down as the strong leaf is smitten;
And before thee there goeth a phantom beseeching
For faculties forfeited--hopes beyond reaching.

. . . . .

Thou knowest, O sister of deities blazing
With splendour ineffable, beauty amazing,
What life the gods gave me--what largess I tasted--
The youth thrown away, and the faculties wasted.
I might, as thou seest, have stood in high places,
Instead of in pits where the brand of disgrace is,
A byword for scoffers--a butt and a caution,
With the grave of poor Burns and Maginn for my portion.

But the heart of the Father Supreme is offended,
And my life in the light of His favour is ended;
And, whipped by inflexible devils, I shiver,
With a hollow "_Too late_" in my hearing for ever;
But thou--being sinless, exalted, supernal,
The daughter of diademed gods, the eternal--
Shalt shine in thy waters when time and existence
Have dwindled, like stars, in unspeakable distance.

But the face of thy river--the torrented power
That smites at the rock while it fosters the flower--
Shall gleam in my dreams with the sum