And then I look'd up toward a mountain-tract,
That girt the region with high cliff and lawn:
I saw that every morning, far withdrawn
Beyond the darkness and the cataract,
God made himself an awful rose of dawn,
Unheeded and detaching, fold by fold,
From those still heights, and, slowly drawing near,
A vapour heavy, hueless, formless, cold,

Came floating on for many a month and year,
Unheeded and I thought I would have spoken,
And warn'd that madman ere it

But, as in dreams, I could not.

grew too late :

Mine was broken,

When that cold vapour touch'd the palace gate,
And link'd again. I saw within my head
A gray and gap-tooth'd man as lean as death,
Who slowly rode across a wither'd heath,
And lighted at a ruin'd inn, and said :

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Wrinkled ostler, grim and thin!

Here is custom come your way;
Take my brute, and lead him in,
Stuff his ribs with mouldy hay.

"Bitter barmaid, waning fast!

bed;

See that sheets are on my
What! the flower of life is past:
It is long before you wed.

"Slip-shod waiter, lank and sour, At the Dragon on the heath! Let us have a quiet hour,

Let us hob-and-nob with Death.

"I am old, but let me drink;

Bring me spices, bring me wine; I remember, when I think,

That my youth was half divine.

"Wine is good for shrivell'd lips,

When a blanket wraps the day,

When the rotten woodland drips,
And the leaf is stamp'd in clay.

"Sit thee down, and have no shame,
Cheek by jowl, and knee by knee :
What care I for any name?
What for order or degree?

"Let me screw thee up a peg:

Let me loose thy tongue with wine : Callest thou that thing a leg?

Which is thinnest ? thine or mine?

"Thou shalt not be saved by works: Thou hast been a sinner too : Ruin'd trunks on wither'd forks,

Empty scarecrows, I and you!

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Fill the cup, and fill the can:

Have a rouse before the morn :
Every minute dies a man,
Every minute one is born.

"We are men of ruin'd blood;

Therefore comes it we are wise. Fish are we that love the mud, Rising to no fancy-flies.

"Name and fame! to fly sublime

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Thro' the courts, the camps, the schools, Is to be the ball of Time,

Bandied in the hands of fools.

Friendship!-to be two in one-
Let the canting liar pack!

Well I know, when I am gone,

How she mouths behind my back.

"Virtue !-to be good and justEvery heart, when sifted well,

Is a clot of warmer dust,

Mix'd with cunning sparks of hell.

"O! we two as well can look

Whited thought and cleanly life As the priest, above his book Leering at his neighbour's wife.

"Fill the cup, and fill the can :

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Have a rouse before the morn :

Every minute dies a man,

Every minute one is born.

Drink, and let the parties rave:

They are fill'd with idle spleen; Rising, falling, like a wave,

For they know not what they mean.

"He that roars for liberty

Faster binds a tyrant's power;

And the tyrant's cruel glee

Forces on the freer hour.

“Fill the can, and fill the cup :
All the windy ways of men

Are but dust that rises up,
And is lightly laid again.

"Greet her with applausive breath, Freedom, gaily doth she tread ;

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In her right a civic wreath,
In her left a human head.

No, I love not what is new;

She is of an ancient house : And I think we know the hue

Of that cap upon her brows.

"Let her go! her thirst she slakes

Where the bloody conduit runs : Then her sweetest meal she makes On the first-born of her sons.

"Drink to lofty hopes that cool-
Visions of a perfect State :
Drink we, last, the public fool,
Frantic love and frantic hate.

"Chant me now some wicked stave,
Till thy drooping courage rise,
And the glow-worm of the grave
Glimmer in thy rheumy eyes.

"Fear not thou to loose thy tongue;
Set thy hoary fancies free;
What is loathsome to the young
Savours well to thee and me.

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Change, reverting to the years,
When thy nerves could understand
What there is in loving tears,

And the warmth of hand in hand.

"Tell me tales of thy first love

April hopes, the fools of chance;

Till the graves begin to move,

And the dead begin to dance.