The Departed Light
Thou know'st the place where purple rocks receive
The deepened silence of the pausing stream;
And myrtles and white olives interweave
Their cool grey shadows with the azure gleam
Of noontide; and pale temple columns cleave
Those waves with shafts of light (as through a dream
Of sorrow, pierced the memories of loved hours—
Cold and fixed thoughts that will not pass away)
All chapleted with wreaths of marble flowers,
Too calm to live,—too lovely to decay.
And hills rise round, pyramidal and vast,
Like tombs built of blue heaven, above the clay
The deepened silence of the pausing stream;
And myrtles and white olives interweave
Their cool grey shadows with the azure gleam
Of noontide; and pale temple columns cleave
Those waves with shafts of light (as through a dream
Of sorrow, pierced the memories of loved hours—
Cold and fixed thoughts that will not pass away)
All chapleted with wreaths of marble flowers,
Too calm to live,—too lovely to decay.
And hills rise round, pyramidal and vast,
Like tombs built of blue heaven, above the clay