Wherefore these revels that my dull eyes greet?
These dancers, dancing at my fleshless feet;
The harpers, harping vainly at my ears
Deaf to the world, lo, thrice a thousand years!
Time was when even I was blithe: I knew
The murmur of the flowing wave, where grew
The lean, lithe rushes; I have heard the moan
Of Nilus in prophetic...
o, when I hear at sea
The water on our lee,
I fancy that I hear the wind
That combs my hemlock tree:
But when beneath that tree
I listen eagerly,
I seem to hear the rushing wave
I heard far out at sea.
Time cannot age thy sinews, nor the gale
Batter the network of thy feathered mail,
Lone sentry of the deep!
Among the crashing caverns of the storm,
With wing unfettered, lo! thy frigid form
Is whirled in dreamless sleep!
Where shall thy wing find rest for all its might?
Where shall thy lidless eye, that scours the night,...
Cast on the water by a careless hand,
Day after day the winds persuaded me:
Onward I drifted till a coral tree
Stayed me among its branches, where the sand
Gathered about me, and I slowly grew,
Fed by the constant sun and the inconstant dew.
The sea-birds build their nests against my root,
And eye my slender body’s horny case...
