Ah, Paris, Paris! What an echo rings <br />Still in those syllables of vain delight! <br />What voice of what dead pleasures on what wings <br />Of Maenad laughters pulsing through the night! <br />How bravely her streets smile on me! How bright <br />Her shops, her houses, fair sepulchral things, <br />Stored with the sins of men forgotten quite, <br />The loves of mountebanks, the lusts of kings! <br />What message has she to me on this day <br />Of my new life? Shall I, a pilgrim wan, <br />Sit at her board and revel at her play, <br />As in the days of old? Nay, this is done. <br />It cannot be; and yet I love her well <br />With her broad roads and pleasant paths to Hell.<br /><br />Wilfrid Scawen Blunt<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-new-pilgrimage-sonnet-vii/
