Her life was turning, turning,
  In mazes of heat and sound. 10
But for peace her soul was yearning,
  And now peace laps her round.

Her cabin’d, deg. ample spirit, deg.13
  It flutter’d and fail’d for breath
To-night it doth inherit 15
  The vasty deg. hall of death. deg.16

CONSOLATION

Mist clogs the sunshine. 
Smoky dwarf houses
Hem me round everywhere;
A vague dejection
Weighs down my soul. 5

Yet, while I languish,
Everywhere countless
Prospects unroll themselves,
And countless beings
Pass countless moods. 10

Far hence, in Asia,
On the smooth convent-roofs,
On the gilt terraces,
Of holy Lassa, deg. deg.14
Bright shines the sun. 15

Grey time-worn marbles
Hold the pure Muses deg.; deg.17
In their cool gallery, deg. deg.18
By yellow Tiber, deg. deg.19
They still look fair. 20

Strange unloved uproar deg. deg.21
Shrills round their portal;
Yet not on Helicon deg. deg.23
Kept they more cloudless
Their noble calm. 25

Through sun-proof alleys
In a lone, sand-hemm’d
City of Africa,
A blind, led beggar,
Age-bow’d, asks alms. 30

No bolder robber
Erst deg. abode ambush’d deg.32
Deep in the sandy waste;
No clearer eyesight
Spied prey afar. 35

Saharan sand-winds
Sear’d his keen eyeballs;
Spent is the spoil he won. 
For him the present
Holds only pain. 40

Two young, fair lovers,
Where the warm June-wind,
Fresh from the summer fields
Plays fondly round them,
Stand, tranced in joy. 45

With sweet, join’d voices,
And with eyes brimming: 
“Ah,” they cry, “Destiny, deg. deg.48
Prolong the present! 
Time, stand still here!” 50

The prompt stern Goddess
Shakes her head, frowning;
Time gives his hour-glass
Its due reversal;
Their hour is gone. 55