  HAUGH the light and the love and the laughter, Half the fruit and the fulness of earth, Have sunk in the gloom that hereafter Will make mute all life’s music and mirth. Lost land of Bohemia, we mourn you, Despond and desire and deplore; Thou the pride of the Philistine scorn you, Lotos-land, what a glamour you bore! Veiled visions of youth, when Love, breathless, In the meshes he wove, was ensnared, We adored you with vows that were deathless While our last crust and penny we shared. Then Fame was the phantom we followed, And Gold was the gain we denied, And Want was the monster that swallowed The pleasure of Art and its pride. Then we built in the air a cloud palace From the gold that our fancy had spun, And we poured our hearts’ blood in Love’s chalice In the dreams of the days that are done. Red lips that were curved to enslave us, White arms that encircled and bound, From your sway bitter-sweet who could save us When love in Bohemia was crowned. Old friends and old loves and old pleasures, As spectres you surge through the mist That envelops our past kingdom’s treasures, That lies chill on the lips that we kissed. Lost land of Bohemia, we mourn you, Despond and desire and deplore; Though the ease of the Philistine scorn you, Lotos-land, what a glamour you bore! |
|
