I bought a cave of late in a lone isle,
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With pillared dome of glittering stalagmite,
Driven thereto, a lorn distracted wight,
By men that earth and air and sea defile,
A being whom the vulgar times compel
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Leaving the noise and glare of things behind.
Dim corridors far down to Hades wind:
Perchance some gleaming fairy folk from hell
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May come a-singing up from underground,
Naked as flowers, with silver asphodel
And wreaths of laurel crowned,
Lordly of limb and blinding fair of face,
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To banquet with me in that lonely place.
There shall I sit and let the world go to,
And sometimes, while yet sleeps the noisy crew,
Ere the first air-ship blots the morning star,
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I shall steal softly up to my blue door,
And gaze on my lost comrades from afar—
Earth, sea and sky, once mine, but mine no more.