1] How vain and dull this common world must seem
2] To such a One as thou, who should'st have talked
3] At Florence with Mirandola, or walked
4] Through the cool olives of the Academe:
5] Thou should'st have gathered reeds from a green stream
6] For Goat-foot Pan's shrill piping, and have played
7] With the white girls in that Phæacian glade
8] Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream.
9] Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay
10] Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again
11] Back to this common world so dull and vain,
12] For thou wert weary of the sunless day,
13] The heavy fields of scentless asphodel,
14] The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell.