Joy, once lost, is pain

Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow claspest the limits of mortality.

What! alive, and so bold, O earth?

Forget the dead, the past? O yet there are ghosts that may take revenge for it, memories that make the heart a tomb, regrets which gild thro’ the spirit’s gloom, and with ghastly whispers tell that joy, once lost, is pain.

The everlasting universe of things Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, Now dark--now glittering--now reflecting gloom-- Now lending splendour, where from secret springs The source of human thought its tribute brings.

Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude.

One word is too often profaned For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdained For thee to disdain it.