Leon Gellert - Dejection

Point thy battered prow to the dark shore
Thou hoary son of Erebus, and dip thy blades
In the slow-moving marge, for I am of the
shades,
And I would see the mocking earth no more.
Welcome is to me that starless dome
That echoes of the dead, and the black Stygian
flood
That laps upon its strand like drowsy blood.
Oh, bear me slow to my Avernian home!
Oh, bear me with slow-metered melody,

And wield thine oars in tune to some Plutonian lay;
For I would be with shadows and forget the day
To roam the dark aisles with Persephone.
Guide me to the banks of some still stream
To pluck the frail narcissus buds where’er I may;
Or let me muse along some cypress-shaded way,
And ponder on the glories of a dream.
Then would I wander in those murky glades,
Where great neglected Pan doth hide his once-
sought horns,
And sleeps all poppy-decked among his slum-
bering fauns,
or creeps with shut eyes through the sombre
shades
With opiate blooms all fashioned garland-wise,
Would I, with solemn face and meekly bended
head,
Go forth alone to meet the world-forgotten dead
With twilight in my soul, and sleep within my eyes.

Leon Gellert

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