Full lunar light, that you might stare
the last time now, on my despair!
How often I've been waking here
at my old desk, till you appeared.

And over papers, notes, and books,
I've caught, my gloomy friend, your looks.
But oh, that on some vessel's flight
To wake and find your lovely light.

And float with spirits near island beaches,
weave in twilight, race on reaches,
cast dusty knowledge overboard,
and bathe in dew, until restored.

Still this old dungeon, still a mole!
cursed be this moldy walled in hole
where heaven's lovely light must pass
and lose its luster through dirt stained glass

Confined with books, and every tome
is gnawed by worms, covered with dust,
and on the walls, up to the dome,
a smoky paper, spots of rust;

Enclosed by tubes and jars that breed
more dust, by instruments and soot,
ancestral furniture to boot-
that is your world, a world indeed!

And need you ask why in my breast
my cramped heart throbs so anxiously?
Life's every stirring is oppressed
by this unfathomed agony?

Instead of living nature which
God made man for, with holy breath,
must stifles you and every niche
holds skulls and skeletons and death.