Go forth and breathe the purer air with me,
And leave the city’s sounding streets;
There is another city, sweet to see,
Whose heart with no delirium beats;
The solid earth beneath it never feels
The dance of joy, the rush of care,
The jar of toil the mingled roll of wheels;
But all is peace and beauty there.
No spacious mansions stand in stately rows
Along that city’s silent ways;
No lofty wall nor level pavement glows,
Unshaded from the summer rays;
No costly merchandise is heaped around,
No pictures stay the passer-by,
Nor plumed soldiers march to music’s sound,
Nor toys and trifles tire the eye.
The narrow streets ore fringed with living green,
And weave about in mazes there;
The many hills bewilder all the scene,
And shadows veil the noonday glare.
No clanging bells ring out the fleeting hours,
But sunlight glimmers softly thro’,
And marks the voiceless time in golden showers
Oil velvet turf and lakelets blue.
The palaces are sculptured shafts of stone
That gleam in beauty thro’ the trees;
The cottages ore mounds with flowers o’ergrown;
No princely church the stranger sees,
But all the grove its pointed arches rears,
And tinted lights shine thro’ the leaves,
And prayers are rained in every mourner’s tears
Who for the dead in silence grieves.
And when dark night descends upon the tombs,
No reveller’s song nor watchman’s voice
Is here! no music comes from lighted rooms
Where swift feet fly and hearts rejoice;
Tis darkness, silence all; no sound is heard
Except the wind that sinks and swells,
The lonely whistle of the midnight bird,
And brooks that ring their crystal bells.
A city strange and still!—its habitants
Are warmly housed yet they are poor—
Are poor, yet have no wish, nor woes and wants;
The broken heart is crushed no more,
No love is interchanged, nor bought and sold,
Ambition sleeps, the innocent
Are safe, the miser counts no more his gold,
But rests at lost and is content.
A city strange and sweet!—its dwellers sleep
At dawn, and in meridian light,—
At sunset still they dream in slumber deep,
Nor woke they in the weary night;
And none of them shall feel the hero’s kiss
On Sleeping Beauty’s lip that fell,
And woke a palace from a trance of bliss
That long had bound it by a spell.
A city strange and sad!—we walk the grounds,
Or seek some mount, and see afar
The living cities shine, and list the sounds
Of throbbing boat and thundering car.
And we may go; but all the dwellers here,
In autumn’s blush, in winter’s snow,
In spring and summer’s bloom from year to year,
They ever come, and never go!
(Henry Webster Parker)
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