Amid the fields of Asphodel
Musing one day by chance,
Imperious Jove
Let memory rove
And turned his gaze austere
To where Arcadian shepherds dwell,
The land of song and dance,
Where Death was not
And Time forgot
To send the rolling year:
Where man, untried by trouble's test,
Found the supreme of life in rest.
Immortal man without a care
Rivalled the gods above:
Free, effortless,
In sheer idlesse
Aping divinity.
So he was made by Jove to share
A mortal life and love
By anguish tried
And purified
For Death's cold sanctity.
Thus 'twas ordained that Death and Pain
Should raise man to a nobler plane.