The Dark Ages

MEN call you "dark." What factory then blurred the light Of golden suns, when nothing blacker than the shades Of coming rain climbed up the heather-mantled height? While the air Breathed all the scents of all untrodden flowers, And brooks poured silver through the glimmering glades, Then sweetly wound through virgin ground. Must all that beauty pass? And must our pleasure trains Like foul eruptions belch upon the mountain head? Must we perforce build vulgar villa lanes, And on sweet fields ...