BOOK ONE

DREAMING SPIRES

Bright memories of young poetic pleasure In free companionship, the loving stress Of all life-beauty, lull’d in studious leisure, When every Muse was jocund with excess Of fine delight and tremulous happiness; The breath of an indolent unbridled June, When delicate thought fell from the dreamy moon: But now strange care, sorrow, and grief oppress. Robert Bridges.