336 CONSOLATIONS OF SOLITUDE
And, as the gardens of delight
On either margin heave in sight,
My bark so swiftly shoots ahead,
Scarce can I look ere all is fled.
The verdant shores behind me glide ;
Each hour the river grows more wide ;
And now the castles of Despair,
With frowning towers, rough, bleak, and bare.
Loom from the desolate wastes of Care.
I see gay Pleasure's winged train
Cleaving the gale above the main ;
The wedged phalanx high o'erhead
Soars on its course, all backward sped
To greet the spring on youth's green shore,
A land I must behold no more.
Now in the mist it melts away.
Shrunk to a speck of dusky gray.
Now lost in clouds. O beauteous day I
I see thy sun, which rose like gold,
Set in the distance, pale and cold.
The shades of night around me creep ;
The fogs come drifting o'er the deep ;
Fain would I turn my prow ; 'tis vain ;
The current drives me toward the main.
Never, ah, never to return again !
Along the river shining clear,
A row of lighthouses appear,
One at the boundary of each year,
Whose moving lantern ceaseless burns.
Where every season glows by turns :
Now the green lights of spring appear ;
Now summer's gold burns bright and clear ;
Now autumn gleams with purple hue.
Now the dull blaze of wintry blue.
Swiftly each beacon light is past ;
Another, turning like the last.
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