XXIV

Farewell, fair day and fading light!

The clay-born here, with westward sight,

Marks the huge sun now downward soar.

Farewell. We twain shall meet no more.

Farewell. I watch with bursting sigh

My late contemned occasion die.

I linger useless in my tent:

Farewell, fair day, so foully spent!

Farewell, fair day. If any God

At all consider this poor clod,

He who the fair occasion sent

Prepared and placed the impediment.

Let him diviner vengeance take —

Give me to sleep, give me to wake

Girded and shod, and bid me play

The hero in the coming day!