V

So thus I picture it, not as life lies Now writhing, but as when the days and nights Followed each other in unmarked delights; Nor noted we the measure of the prize Till all was over. Now the spirit cries, What time encroaching Inanition blights, For but the phantom of its past, and fights Extinction with its memories. Let them rise! Let me dissemble that as in past days The crystal fountain with delicious flow Of bursting social joy unconscious plays Over the garden close, where row by row The flowers of life in such profusion blaze That their own loveliness they do not know.

HESEPE, 20th May