THE OLD CITY
Thou hast come from the old city,
From the gate and the tower,
From King and priest and serving man
And burnished bower,
From beggar's whine and barking dogs,
From prison sealed—
Thou hast come from the old city
The gables in the old city
Are stooping awry,
They gloom upon the muddy lanes
And smother the sky,
And nightly through those mouldy lanes,
Moping and slow,
They who builded the old city
The cold ghosts go.
There is plague in the old city,
And the priests are sped
To graveyard and vault
To bury the dead;
Brittle bones and dusty breath
To death must yield—
Fly, fly, from the old city
Into the field!
Ruth Manning-Sanders