Joseph Rodman Drake

Lines

Day gradual fades, in evening gray,
   Its last faint beam hath fled,
And sinks the sun’s declining ray
   In ocean’s wavy bed.
So o’er the loves and joys of youth
   Thy waves, Indifference, roll;
So mantles round our days of truth
   That death-pool of the soul.

Spreads o’er the heavens the shadowy night
   Her dim and shapeless form,
So human pleasures, frail and light,
   Are lost in passion’s storm.
So fades the sunshine of the breast,
   So passion’s dreamings fall,
So friendship’s fervours sink to rest,
   Oblivion shrouds them all.