O, then the eternal Condor years

So shook the very Heavens on high,

With tumult as they thunder'd by;

I had no time for idle cares,

Thro' gazing on the unquiet sky!

Or if an hour with calmer wing

Its down did on my spirit fling,

That little hour with lyre and rhyme

To while away—forbidden thing!

My heart half fear'd to be a crime

Unless it trembled with the string.

But now my soul hath too much room—

Gone are the glory and the gloom—

The black hath mellow'd into grey,

And all the fires are fading away.

My draught of passion hath been deep—

I revell'd, and I now would sleep—

And after-drunkenness of soul

Succeeds the glories of the bowl—

An idle longing night and day

To dream my very life away.

But dreams—of those who dream as I,

Aspiringly, are damned, and die:

Yet should I swear I mean alone,

By notes so very shrilly blown,

To break upon Time's monotone,

While yet my vapid joy and grief

Are tintless of the yellow leaf—

Why not an imp the greybeard hath,

Will shake his shadow in my path—

And even the greybeard will o'erlook

Connivingly my dreaming-book.

(1831)