Five songs on English poems

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife:
Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art:
I warm'd both hands before the fire of Life;
It sinks; and I am ready to depart.

     I have desired to go
        Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
     And a few lilies blow.

    And I have asked to be
        Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
     And out of the swing of the sea.

Even such is Time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with [age]1 and dust;
Who, in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days;
[And from which earth, and grave, and dust]2,
[The Lord]3 shall raise me up, I trust.

This world a hunting is,
The prey poor man,
The Nimrod fierce is death.
His speedy greyhounds are
Lust, sickness, envy, care,
Strife that ne'er falls amiss,
With all those ills which haunt us
While we breathe.
Now if by chance we fly
Of these the eager chase,
Old age with stealing pace
Casts up his nets,
and there we panting die.

There is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be,
In the cold grave--under the deep deep sea,
Or in wide desert where no life is found,
Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound;
No voice is hush'd--no life treads silently,
But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free.
That never spoke, over the idle ground:
But in green ruins, in the desolate walls
Of antique palaces, where Man hath been,
Though the dun fox, or wild hyaena, calls,
And owls, that flit continually between,
Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan, --
There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.