The poet's heart is a fatal boon,
And fatal his wondrous eye,
And the delicate ear,
So quick to hear,
Over the earth and sky,
Creation's mystic tune!
Soon, soon, but not too soon,
Does that ear grow deaf and that eye grow dim,
And nature becometh a waste for him,
Whom, born for another sphere,
Misery hath shipwrecked here!
For what availeth his sensitive heart
For the struggle and stormy strife
That the mariner-man,
Since the world began
Has braved on the sea of life?
With fearful wonder his eye doth start,
When it should be fixed on the outspread chart
That pointeth the way to golden shores—
Rent are his sails and broken his oars,
And he sinks without hope or plan,
With his floating caravan.