163 
 
 
 
 
 
THE OPIUM-SMOKER 
 
(IN EIGHT FUGUES) 
 
I 
CROWN me with poppy-leaves :  sere are the bays. 
Fling down the myrtle :  the myrtle decays. 
Still be the strife of the strenuous days !   
 
Still be thy stridency, Player Pandean !   
Soothe me the lute ;  but oh hush to the pæan !   
Feed me on kisses of flowers Lethean !   
 
Specks on the wheel are the nights and the days, 
Fast as they fall from me, lost in the haze, 
Sobered to softness of silvery grays. 
 
Satan is fallen from the pale empyrean 
Down in the dusk with the dead Galilean :— 
Fill me the cup of the poppy Circean !   
 
II 
Hardly a glimmer to chasten the gloom ; 
Hardly a murmur of Time at his loom ;   
Nothing of sense but the poppy-perfume.