What god will choose me from this labouring nation To worship him afar, with inward gladness, At sunset and at sunrise, in some Persian Garden of roses; Or under the full moon, in rapturous silence, Charmed by the trickling fountain, and the moaning Of the death-hallowed cypress, and the myrtle Hallowed by Venus? O for a chamber in an eastern tower, Spacious and empty, roofed in odorous cedar, A silken soft divan, a woven carpet Rich, many-coloured; A jug that, poised on her firm head, a negress Fetched from the well; a window to the ocean, Lest of the stormy world too deep seclusion Make me forgetful! Thence I might watch the vessel-bearing waters Beat the slow pulses of the life eternal, Bringing of nature's universal travail Infinite echoes; And there at even I might stand and listen To thrum of distant lutes and dying voices Chanting the ditty an Arabian captive Sang to Darius. So would I dream awhile, and ease a little The soul long stifled and the straitened spirit, Tasting new pleasures in a far-off country Sacred to beauty. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THERE IS NO DEATH by JOHN LUCKEY MCCREERY PHILOMELA by JOHN CROWE RANSOM OH, LOVE THOU TOO! by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS THE BOBBIN-WINDER by JOSEPHINE ELIZABETH ARCHER WILD ROSES AND SNOW by H. T. MACKENZIE BELL PSALM 95 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE |