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 wear   The purple noon’s transparent light:   The breath of the moist air is light   Around 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 floor   With green and purple sea-weeds strown;   I see the waves upon the shore   Like light dissolved in star-showers thrown:   I sit upon the sands alone;   The lightning of the noontide ocean   Is flashing round me, and a tone   Arises 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 mild   Even as the winds and waters are;   I could lie down like a tired child,   And weep away the life of care   Which I have borne, and yet must bear,   Till death like sleep might steal on me,   And I might feel in the warm air   My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea Breathe o’er my dying brain its last monotony.   Some might lament that I were cold,   As I, when this sweet day is gone,   Which my lost heart, too soon grown old,   Insults with this untimely moan;   They might lament,—for I am one   Whom men love not,—and yet regret,   Unlike this day, which, when the sun   Shall on its stainless glory set, Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet.