But we know not where,
’Neath the desert air,
To look for the pleasant places
Of the youth of Time,
Whose austerer prime
The haunts of his childhood effaces.
V.
Like the golden flowers
Of the western bowers,
Have waned their immortal shadows;
And no harp may tell
Where the asphodel
Clad in light those Elysian meadows.
VI.
And thou, fairest Isle
In the daylight’s smile,
Hast thou sunk in the boiling ocean,
While beyond thy strand
Rose a mightier land
From the wave in alternate motion?
VII.
Are the isles that stud
The Atlantic flood,
But the peaks of thy tallest mountains,
While repose below
The great water’s flow
Thy towns and thy towers and fountains?
VIII.
Have the Ocean powers
Made their quiet bowers,
In thy fanes and thy dim recesses?
Or in haunts of thine
Do the sea-maids twine
Coral wreaths for their dewy tresses?