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Here stood a sacred forest. Here the messenger Wing-footed went, his touch upon the dumb glades leaving. . . Upon the site of cities, nor stones, nor ruins heaving: Now on burnt slopes but sheep in scattered patches stir. The mountain peaks: cut crowns! Across each bitten spur The clear green twilight flows, mysteriously grieving. By whose dim longing stung, what is my soul retrieving? Who knows the road of gods? The dawns and dusks that blur? In its sonorous caves the rubble, churned, is sounding; Lifting its weighty crests, the troubled sea is pounding Upon the sandy dunes, upon the ringing shore. The heavy nights pass on in tears through starry spaces. . . The outcast gods command, whom men invoke no more, And ineluctably they show dark, alien faces.