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 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 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 those 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 |