That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.

How clear, how lovely bright, How beautiful to sight Those beams of morning play; How heaven laughs out with glee Where, like a bird set free, Up from the eastern sea Soars the delightful day. To-day I shall be strong, No more shall yield to wrong, Shall squander life no more; Days lost, I know not how, I shall retrieve them now; Now I shall keep the vow I never kept before. Ensanguining the skies How heavily it dies Into the west away; Past touch and sight and sound Not further to be found, How hopeless under ground Falls the remorseful day.

Three minutes thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.

Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies, But keep your fancy free.

Wanderers eastward, wanderers west, Know you why you cannot rest? 'Tis that every mother's son Travails with a skeleton. Lie down in the bed of dust; Bear the fruit that bear you must; Bring the eternal seed to light, And morn is all the same as night.

Hope lies to mortals And most believe her, But man's deceiver Was never mine.

Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.