About myself a shadow I have wrapped;
I shall no more with patience nor with ease
Hear feathered minstrels shake the sunny trees,
Or see the primrose by the runnel lapped.
God knows it joys me little what has happed;
It gives no pleasure to my heart to freeze,
Nor do I taste my fortune's bitter lees
Without wry faces that I thus am trapped.
O weary midnight, pressing fold on fold!
O dull, chill aspect of despairing day!
O outer vacancy and inner cold!
When shall your dreary empire pass away?
When shall her splendor flood vale, hill, and wold,
To chase these scowling vapors far away?