VIII
Within a gloomy land our love did grow,
Within a city gray with mist and smoke
Whose roofs lone prairie levels roughly choke,
Where no bright, seaward slipping rivers flow,
Around us rose the din of toil and woe—
Straight church towers whence stern warring bell tones broke
With words of warning when their iron tongues spoke,—
Such was the city that our love did know!
Think you we saw it? No, no! This saw we—
A waving field where flame-like flowers bloom,
(That fateful flower of old Sicilian doom—
Great Demeter, we thought not then of thee!)
We plucked. We ate. The fruit was strangely sweet,
And hell and heaven opened at our feet.