Stanzas Written in Dejection Near Naples
THE sun is warm, the sky is clear,The waves are dancing fast and bright,Blue isles and snowy mountains wearThe purple noon’s transparent might:The breath of the moist earth is lightAround its unexpanded buds;Like many a voice of one delight—The winds’, the birds’, the ocean-floods’—The city’s voice itself is soft like Solitude’s.
I see the deep’s untrampled floorWith green and purple sea-weeds strown;I see the waves upon the shoreLike light dissolved in star-showers thrown:I sit upon the sands alone;The lightning of the noon-tide oceanIs flashing round me, and a toneArises from its measured motion—How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.
Alas! I have nor hope nor health,Nor peace within nor calm around,Nor that content, surpassing wealth,The sage in meditation found,And walked with inward glory crowned—Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure;Others I see whom these surround—Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.
Yet now despair itself is mildEven as the winds and waters are;I could lie down like a tired child,And weep away the life of careWhich I have borne and yet must bear,—Till death like sleep might steal on me,And I might feel in the warm airMy cheek grow cold, and hear the seaBreathe o’er my dying brain its last monotony.