VII.

My boots may lie and mould, However rare and old; I cannot read to-day, Away! with books, away! Full-fed with sweets of sense, I sink upon my couch in honied indolence! Here are rich salvers full of nectarines, Dead-ripe pomegranates, sweet Arabian dates, Peaches and plums, and clusters fresh from vines, And all imaginable sweets, and cakes, And here are drinking-cups, and long-necked flasks In wicker mail, and bottles broached from casks, In cellars delved deep, and winter cold, Select, superlative, and centuries old. What more can I desire? what book can be As rich as Idleness and Luxury? What lore can fill my heart with joy divine, Like luscious fruitage, and enchanted wine? Brimming with Helicon I dash the cup; Why should I waste my years in hoarding up The thoughts of eld? Let dust to dust return: No more for me,--my heart is not an urn! I will no longer sip from little flasks, Covered with damp and mould, when Nature yields, And Earth is full of purple vintage fields; Nor peer at Beauty dimmed with mortal masks, When I at will may have them all withdrawn, And freely gaze in her transfigured face; Nor limp in fetters in a weary race, When I may fly unbound, like Mercury's fawn; No more contented with the sweets of old, Albeit embalmed in nectar, since the trees, The Eden bowers, the rich Hesperides, Droop all around my path, with living fruits of gold!