Oh, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears To-day of past Regrets and future Fears – To-morrow? – Why, to-morrow I may be Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n Thousand Years.

And this delightful Herb whose tender Green Fledges the River’s Lip on which we lean – Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows From what once Lovely Lip it springs unseen!

I sometimes think that never blows so red The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled ; That every Hyacinth the Garden wears Dropt in its Lap from some once Lovely Head.

They say the Lion and the Lizard keep The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep ; And Bahram, that great Hunter – the Wild Ass Stamps o’er his Head, and he lies fast asleep.

Think, in this batter’d Caravanserai Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day, How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp Abode his Hour or two, and went his way.

And those who husbanded the Golden Grain, And those who flung it to the Winds like Rain, Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn’d As, buried once, Men want dug up again.