The Triumph of Life WIFT as a spirit hastening to his task Of glory and of good, the Sun sprang forth Rejoicing in his splendour, and the mask Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth Of light, the Ocean's orison arose, Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day, Burned slow and inconsumably, and sent Isle, ocean, and all things that in them wear The form and character of mortal mould, Rise as the Sun their father rose, to bear Their portion of the toil, which he of old Took as his own, and then imposed on them: But I, whom thoughts which must remain un told Had kept as wakeful as the stars that gem The cone of night, now they were laid asleep Stretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem Which an old chestnut flung athwart the steep Of a green Apennine: before me fled The night; behind me rose the day; the deep Was at my feet, and Heaven above my head, When a strange trance over my fancy grew Which was not slumber, for the shade it spread Was so transparent, that the scene came through That I had felt the freshness of that dawn, Bathed in the same cold dew my brow and hair, And sate as thus upon that slope of lawn Under the selfsame bough, and heard as there The birds, the fountains and the ocean hold Sweet talk in music through the enamoured air, And then a vision on my brain was rolled. As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay, This was the tenor of my waking dream : Methought I sate beside a public way Thick strewn with summer dust, and a great stream Of people there was hurrying to and fro, Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam, All hastening onward, yet none seemed to know Whither he went, or whence he came, or why He made one of the multitude, and so Was borne amid the crowd, as through the sky One of the million leaves of summer's bier; Old age and youth, manhood and infancy Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear, Some flying from the thing they feared, and some Seeking the object of another's fear; And others as with steps towards the tomb, Pored on the trodden worms that crawled be neath, And others mournfully within the gloom |