SELECTIONS IN ENGLISH POETRY
In love that scarce can give a dying kiss,
In pleasure ending sweet songs with a wail, 485
In fame that little can dead men avail,
In vain toil struggling with the fateful stream,
In hope, the promise of a morning dream.
Yet as night died, and the cold sea and grey
Seemed running with them toward the dawn of day,
Needs must they once again forget their death, 491
Needs must they, being alive and drawing breath,
As men who of no other life can know
In their own minds again immortal grow.
But toward the south a little now they bent, 495
And for awhile o'er landless sea they went
But on the third day made another land
At dawn of day, and thitherward did stand;
And since the wind blew lightly from the shore,
Somewhat abeam, they feared not with the oar 500
To push across the shallowing sea and green,
That washed a land the fairest they had seen,
Whose shell-strewn beach at highest of the tide
Twixt sea and flowery shore was nowise wide,
And drawn a little backward from the sea ' 5°5
There stood a marble wall wrought cunningly,
Rosy and white, set thick with images,
And over-topped with heavy-fruited trees,
Which by the shore ran, as the bay did bend,
And to their eyes had neither gap nor end; 5J°
Nor any gate : and looking over this,
They saw a place not made for earthly bliss,
Or eyes of dying men, for growing there
The yellow apple and the painted pear,
And well-filled golden cups of oranges
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