Page:The city of dreadful night - and other poems (IA cityofdreadfulni00thomrich).pdf/18



The moon and stars may shine with scorn or pity; The sun has never visited that city, For it dissolveth in the daylight fair.

Dissolveth like a dream of night away; Though present in distempered gloom of thought And deadly weariness of heart all day. But when a dream night after night is brought Throughout a week, and such weeks few or many Recur each year for several years, can any Discern that dream from real life in aught?

For life is but a dream whose shapes return, Some frequently, some seldom, some by night And some by day, some night and day: we learn, The while all change and many vanish quite, In their recurrence with recurrent changes A certain seeming order; where this ranges We count things real; such is memory's might.

A river girds the city west and south, The main north channel of a broad lagoon, Regurging with the salt tides from the mouth; Waste marshes shine and glister to the moon