I dared not think, for truth rose horrible, slapping the face with coarse uncaring hand,
But like them cheated into merriment, I wilfully refused to understand;
Turned me away from wan-eyed poverty, trod pity underfoot, oh, danced on grief,
Bade the crowd sing and fill my desolation, bade them be glad and hide my disbelief.
But like them cheated into merriment, I wilfully refused to understand;
Turned me away from wan-eyed poverty, trod pity underfoot, oh, danced on grief,
Bade the crowd sing and fill my desolation, bade them be glad and hide my disbelief.
Strange we so love the world for presently, out of my window looking on the city,
I blessed the night, and the roofs slumbering all huddled, and I felt no shame nor pity
For all our dusty days of journeying amid the wreck and ruins of our dreams,
Meandering in a bleared forgetfulness, where lethe laps the wharf of sleeping streams.
I only breathed the air, intensified by the ascending breath of million lungs,
And heard the labouring metropolis, quickened by whispers of a million tongues;
And felt a king of splendid loneliness, and felt an atom of the peopled spaces,
And felt again my lordly egoism, one face distinct among the blur of faces.
I blessed the night, and the roofs slumbering all huddled, and I felt no shame nor pity
For all our dusty days of journeying amid the wreck and ruins of our dreams,
Meandering in a bleared forgetfulness, where lethe laps the wharf of sleeping streams.
I only breathed the air, intensified by the ascending breath of million lungs,
And heard the labouring metropolis, quickened by whispers of a million tongues;
And felt a king of splendid loneliness, and felt an atom of the peopled spaces,
And felt again my lordly egoism, one face distinct among the blur of faces.
1913
16
