Oh happy fortune, on and on
To wander far till care be gone,
Round beetling capes, to unknown seas,
Seeking the fair Hesperides!
But is there any land or sea
Where toil and trouble cease to be—
Some dim, unfound, diviner shore,
Where men may sin and mourn no more?
Ah, not the feeling, but the sky
We change, however far we fly;
How swift soe'er our bark may speed,
Faster the blessed isles recede.
Nay, let us seek at home to find
Fit harvest for the brooding mind,
And find, since thus the world grows fair,
Duty and pleasure everywhere.
Oh well-worn road, oh homely way,
Where pace our footsteps, day by day,
The homestead and the church which bound
The tranquil seasons' circling round!
Ye hold experiences which reach
Depths which no change of skies can teach,
The saintly thought, the secret strife
Which guide, which do perturb our life.
NIOBE.
ON SIPYLUS.
Ah me, ah me! on this high mountain peak,
Which far above the seething Lydian plains
Takes the first dawn-shaft, and the sunset keeps
When all the fields grow dark—I, Niobe,
A mother's heart, hid in a form of stone,
Stand all day in the vengeful sun-god's eye,
Stand all night in the cold gaze of the moon,
Who both long ages since conspiring, slew
My children,—I a childless mother now
Who was most blest, a living woman still,
Bereft of all, and yet who cannot die.