THE blue dusk ran between the streets: my love was winged within my mind, It left to-day and yesterday and thrice a thousand years behind. To-day was past and dead for me, for from to-day my feet had run Through thrice a thousand years to walk the ways of ancient Babylon. On temple top and palace roof the burnished gold flung back the rays Of a red sunset that was dead and lost beyond a million days. The tower of heaven turns darker blue, a starry sparkle now begins; The mystery and magnificence, the myriad beauty and the sins Come back to me. I walk beneath the shadowy multitude of towers; Within the gloom the fountain jets its pallid mist in lily flowers. The waters lull me and the scent of many gardens, and I hear Familiar voices, and the voice I love is whispering in my ear. Oh real as in dream all this; and then a hand on mine is laid: The wave of phantom time withdraws; and that young Babylonian maid, One drop of beauty left behind from all the flowing of that tide, Is looking with the self-same eyes, and here in Ireland by my side. Oh light our life in Babylon, but Babylon has taken wings, While we are in the calm and proud procession of eternal things. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONG OF TWO CROWS by HAYDEN CARRUTH THE IMPOSSIBLE INDISPENSIBILITY OF THE ARS POETICA by HAYDEN CARRUTH MATE (1) by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE DANCERS by KATHERINE HARRIS BRADLEY HOW WE BURNED THE 'PHILADELPHIA' by BARRETT EASTMAN TO SIR JOHN SPENSER KNIGHTE, ALDERMAN OF LONDON by RICHARD BARNFIELD FALLING STARS by PIERRE JEAN DE BERANGER SONNETS WRITTEN IN AN IRISH PRISON: HER NAME LIBERTY by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT |