In a Carriage Upon the Banks of the Rhine

AMID this dance of objects sadness steals
O'er the defrauded heart, while sweeping by,
As in a fit of Thespian jollity,
Beneath her vine-leaf crown the green earth reels:
Backward, in rapid evanescence, wheels
The venerable pageantry of time,
Each beetling rampart, and each tower sublime,
And what the dell unwillingly reveals
Of lurking cloistral arch, through trees espied
Near the bright river's edge. Yet wliy repine?
To muse, to creep, to bait at will, to gaze,—
Such sweet wayfaring, —of life's spring the pride,
Her summer's faithful joy, — that still is mine,
And in fit measure cheers autumnal days.