The Poets and Poetry of America/Elysium

by Edward Coote Pinkney

For works with similar titles, see Elysium.

She dwelleth in Elysium; there,
Like Echo, floating in the air;
Feeding on light as feed the flowers,
She fleets away uncounted hours,
Where halcyon Peace, among the bless'd,
Sits brooding o'er her tranquil nest.

She needs no impulse; one she is,
Whom thought supplies with ample bliss:
The fancies fashion'd in her mind
By Heaven, are after its own kind;
Like sky-reflection in a lake,
Whose calm no winds occur to break.

Her memory is purified,
And she seems never to have sigh'd:
She hath forgot the way to weep;
Her being is a joyous sleep;
The mere imagining of pain,
Hath pass'd and cannot come again.

Except of pleasure most intense
And constant, she hath lost all sense;
Her life is day without a night,
An endless, innocent delight;
No changes her happiness now mars
Howe'er Fate twine her wreathe of stars.

And palpable and pure, the part
Which pleasure playeth with her heart;
For every joy that seeks the maid,
Foregoes its common painful shade
Like shapes that issue from the grove
Arcadian, dedicate to Jove.