The old enthusiasms
Are dead, quite dead, in me;
Dead the aspiring spasms
Of art and poesy,
That opened magic chasms,
Once, of wild mystery,
In youth’s rich Araby,
Aladdin-wondrous chasms.
The longing and the care
Are mine; and, helplessly,
The heartache and despair
For what can never be.
More than my mortal share
Of sad mortality,
It seems, God gives to me,
More than my mortal share.
O world! O time! O fate!
Remorseless trinity!
Let not your wheel abate
Its iron rotary!—
Turn round! nor make me wait,
Bound to it neck and knee,
Hope’s final agony!—
Turn round! nor make me wait.