Classic Poem

My books may lie and mould,
However rare and old;
I cannot read to-day.
Away with books, away!
Full-fed with sweets of sense,
I sink upon my couch in honeyed indolence!
Here are rich salvers full of nectarines,
Dead-ripe pomegranates, and Arabian dates,
Peaches and plums, and clusters fresh from vines,
And all imaginable sweets, and cates;
And here are drinking-cups, and long-necked flasks
In wicker mail, and bottles broached from casks
In cellars delved deep, and winter-cold,
Select, superlative, and centuries old.
What more can I desire? what book can be
As rich as Idleness and Luxury?
What lore can fill my heart with joy divine,
Like luscious fruitage, and enchanted wine?
Brimming with Helicon I dash the cup:
Why should I waste my years in hoarding up
The thoughts of eld? Let dust to dust return:
No more for me, — my heart is not an urn!
I will no longer sip from little flasks,
Covered with damp and mould, when Nature yields
A riper growth, from later vintage-fields;
Nor peer at Beauty, dimmed with mortal masks,
When I at will may have them all withdrawn,
And freely gaze in her transfigured face;
Nor limp in fetters in a weary race,
When I may fly unbound, like Mercury's fawn;
No more contented with the sweets of old,
Albeit embalmed in nectar, since the trees,
The Eden bowers, the rich Hesperides,
Still droop around my path, with living fruits of gold!