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They say A certain flower that blooms forever In sunnier skies, Is called the amaranth. They say it never Withers away or dies, -- I never saw one. They say A bird of foreign lands, -- the condor, Never alights, But through the air unceasingly will wander, In long, aerial flights, -- I never saw one. They say That in Egyptian deserts, massive, Half buried in the sands, Swept by the hot sirocco, grand, impassive, The statue of colossal Memnon stands, -- I never saw it. They say A land faultless, far off, and fairy, A summer land, with woods and glens and glades, Is seen where palms rise feathery and airy, And from whose lawns the sunlight never fades, -- I never saw it. They say The stars make melody sonorous While whirling on their poles; They say through space an interstellar chorus Magnificently rolls, -- I never heard it. Now what Care I for amaranth or condor, Colossal Memnon, or the fairy land, Or for the songs of planets as they wander Through arcs superlatively grand? -- They are not real. Hope's idle Dreams the Real vainly follows, Facts stay as fadeless as the Parthenon While fancies, like the smoky-tinted swallows, Flit gaily mid its arches and are gone. |
