Excerpt from The Silver Age: A Dramatic Poem On the terrace before a villa in a Swiss valley Godwin and Vane are seated, towards the evening of a September day. Godwin. You wonder at my choosing for retreat, A whole long summer, this much-labelled land, - The Hampstead Heath of Europe. Well, it served My mood and purpose. Painted photographs. Excursion bills, drop-scenes theatrical, All the familiar crudities have failed To spoil for me the pure, cold loveliness Of Alpine peaks ethereal, or the blush Of faintest blue in white transparency. Where glaciers, with suspended motion, glide Like sculptured rivers. But, apart from all Refreshment of the senses, I had need Of some like point of observation. I Grow old, and am not frequent in affairs. As once. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.