Days, when the ball of our vision
Had eagles that flew unabashed to sun;
When the graps on the bow was decision,
And arrow and hand and eye were one;
When the Pleasures, like waves to a swimmer,
Came heaving for rapture ahead! -
Invoke them, they dwindle, they glimmer
As lights over mounds of the dead.

The poetical works of George Meredith: with some notes (ed. 1912)