Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland: Vols. XIV–XV. 1876–79. | | | | Belgium: Ghent | | The Platform of St. Nicholas’ Church | | Sir Henry Taylor (1800–1886) |
| | (From Philip van Artevelde, Act IV. Scene I)
THERE lies a sleeping city. God of dreams! | |
| What an unreal and fantastic world | |
| Is going on below! | |
| Within the sweep of yon encircling wall, | |
| How many a large creation of the night, | 5 |
| Wide wilderness and mountain, rock and sea, | |
| Peopled with busy transitory groups, | |
| Finds room to rise, and never feels the crowd! | |
| If when the shows had left the dreamers’ eyes | |
| They should float upward visibly to mine, | 10 |
| How thick with apparitions were that void! | |
| But now the blank and blind profundity | |
| Turns my brain giddy with a sick aversion. | | | | |
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