14 
INTRODUCTION. 
In whose coloured vase might sleep the dew, 
Like a pearl in an ocean-shell. 
To such sweet signs might the time have flowed 
In a golden current on, 
Ere from the garden, man’s first abode, 
The glorious guests were gone. 
So might the days have been brightly told — 
Those days of song and dreams, — 
When shepherds gathered their flocks of old, 
By the blue Arcadian streams. 
So in those isles of delight, that rest 
Far off in a breezeless main, 
Which many a bark, with a weary quest, 
Has sought, but still in vain. 
Yet is not life, in its real flight, 
Marked thus — even thus — on earth, 
By the closing of one hope’s delight, 
And another’s gentle birth? 
Oh ! let us live, so that flower by flower, 
Shutting in turn, may leave 
A lingerer still for the sun-set hour, 
A charm for the shaded eve. 
