Idle Age, Op. 35

Once I on more idle age,
Let flow both wines of saint and sage,
And having none to compel, my flickering fire
Did tint an Angelic host with desire,
And pass day, its increase,
Did their spotless innocence cease.
There were the bountiful horns that did offer,
The overflowing contents of an Empire's coffer;
And there were the heirs of an apple-tree,
Which lowly did lay within the reach of me;
Yet as my grasp to them my fingers led,
The apples told, they'd made me a death-bed!

What followed was as decreed by a draconian law,
As with wild and frightened grip and claw,
I all the scarlet gardens did adjourn,
And having adjourned, set them to burn,
So that what to pleasure before I'd lost,
Was now but a shade what its retainment cost.
The smoke which silently from the wreck did rise,
I think, with tearful brand did scratch my eyes,
Till again the angels of innocence fled,
And with them the haze, and cleared this head;
The burning Eden was not fit for a sage,
And I yearned - yearned for an idler age.