And so I grieve,
Grieve when I wake, or at high blinding noon
Or when the moon
Mocks this sad Ninevah where the throngs weave
Their jostling ways by day, their paths by night;
Where darkness is not--where the streets burn bright
With hectic fevers, eloquent of death!
I gasp for breath....
Visions have I, visions! So sweet they seem
That from this welter of men and things I turn, to dream
Of the dim Wood-world, calling out to me.
Where forest-virgins I half glimpse, half see
With cool mysterious fingers beckoning!
Where vine-wreathed woodland altars sunlit burn,
Or Dryads dance their mystic rounds and sing,
Sing high, sing low, with magic cadences
That once the wild oaks of Dodona heard;
And every wood-note bids me burst asunder
The bonds that hold me from the leaf-hid bird.
I quaff thee, O Nepenthe! Ah, the wonder
Grows, that there be who buy their wealth, their ease
By damning serfs to cities, hot and blurred,
Far from thy golden quest, Hesperides!.
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