HOW vain and dull this common world must seem
 To such a One as thou, who should'st have talked
 At Florence with Mirandola, or walked
 Through the cool olives of the Academe:
 Thou should'st have gathered reeds from a green stream
 For Goat-foot Pan's shrill piping, and have played
 With the white girls in that Phæacian glade
 Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream.

 Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay
 Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again
 Back to this common world so dull and vain,
 For thou wert weary of the sunless day,
 The heavy fields of scentless asphodel,
 The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell.