XVIII

=Sonnet=

The palid thunderstricken sigh for gain,

Down an ideal stream they ever float,

And sailing on Pactolus in a boat,

Drown soul and sense, while wistfully they strain

Weak eyes upon the glistering sands that robe

The understream. The wise could he behold

Cathedralled caverns of thick-ribbèd gold

And branching silvers of the central globe,

Would marvel from so beautiful a sight

How scorn and ruin, pain and hate could flow:

But Hatred in a gold cave sits below,

Pleached with her hair, in mail of argent light

Shot into gold, a snake her forehead clips

And skins the colour from her trembling lips.

The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson · 第 32 / 86 题