The toil of that last mile;

But lie awake and feel

The cool sheets' tremulous kisses

O'er all my body steal ...

Is sleep as sweet as this is?

Covered like a poisonous well,

What you saw you'd quail to tell.

I feel it all from front to back,

It glimmers forth, now dark, now clear,

The marshes and the writhing mere,

(I walk there first when I step in)

The city stands, unstained of sin;

The quiet-eyed inhabitants

And mingle in decorous dance;

It could not live in that sweet air,

And fall away to nothing there.

 But go you out beyond the gateway, Cleave you the woods and pass the plain, Cross you the frontier down, and straightway The trees will end, the grass will wane, And you will come to a wilderness Of sticks and parchèd barrenness. The middle of the land is this, A tawny desert midmost set, Barren of living things it is, Saving at night some vampires flit That nest them in the farther marish Where all save vilest things must perish. Here in this reedy marsh of green And oily pools, swarm insects fat And birds of prey and beasts obscene, Things that the traveller shudders at, All cunning things that creep and fly 

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