Yet, while I languish,
Everywhere, countless
Prospects unroll themselves,
    And countless beings
Pass countless moods.

Far hence, in Asia,
On the smooth convent-roofs,
On the gilt terraces,
    Of holy Lassa,
Bright shines the sun.

Grey time-worn marbles
Hold the pure Muses;
In their cool gallery,
    By yellow Tiber,
They still look fair.

Strange unloved uproar
Shrills round their portal;
Yet not on Helicon
    Kept they more cloudless
Their noble calm.

Through sun-proof alleys
In a lone, sand-hemm’d
City of Africa,
    A blind, led beggar,
Age-bow’d, asks alms.

No bolder robber
Erst abode ambush’d
Deep in the sandy waste;
    No clearer eyesight
Spied prey afar.

Saharan sand-winds
Sear’d his keen eyeballs;
Spent is the spoil he won.
    For him the present
Holds only pain.

Two young, fair lovers,
Where the warm June-wind,
Fresh from the summer fields
    Plays fondly round them,
Stand, tranced in joy.

With sweet, join’d voices,
And with eyes brimming:
‘Ah,’ they cry, ‘Destiny,
    Prolong the present!
Time, stand still here!’

The prompt stern Goddess
Shakes her head, frowning;
Time gives his hour-glass
    Its due reversal;
Their hour is gone.

With weak indulgence
Did the just Goddess
Lengthen their happiness,
    She lengthen’d also
Distress elsewhere.

The hour, whose happy
Unalloy’d moments
I would eternalise,
    Ten thousand mourners
Well pleased see end.

The bleak, stern hour,
Whose severe moments
I would annihilate,
    Is pass’d by others
In warmth, light, joy.

Time, so complain’d of,
Who to no one man
Shows partiality,
    Brings round to all men
Some undimm’d hours.