LXXII.
 

Day, when my crown’d estate begun
    To pine in that reverse of doom,
    Which sicken’d every living bloom,
And blurr’d the splendour of the sun;

Who usherest in the dolorous hour
    With thy quick tears that make the rose
    Pull sideways, and the daisy close
Her crimson fringes to the shower;

Who might’st have heaved a windless flame
    Up the deep East, or, whispering, play’d
    A chequer-work of beam and shade
Along the hills, yet look’d the same.

As wan, as chill, as wild as now;
    Day, mark’d as with some hideous crime,
    When the dark hand struck down thro’ time,
And cancell’d nature’s best: but thou,

Lift as thou may’st thy burthen’d brows
    Thro’ clouds that drench the morning star,
    And whirl the ungarner’d sheaf afar,
And sow the sky with flying boughs,

And up thy vault with roaring sound
    Climb thy thick noon, disastrous day;
    Touch thy dull goal of joyless gray,
And hide thy shame beneath the ground.