<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=529191" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Flight of the Goddess</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">A man should live in a garret aloof,<br>And have few friends, and go poorly clad,<br>With an old hat stopping the chink in the roof,<br>To keep the Goddess constant and glad.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Of old, when I walked on a rugged way,<br>And gave much work but for little bread,<br>The Goddess dwelt with me night and day,<br>Sat at my table, haunted my bed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The narrow, mean attic, I see it now!--<br>Its window overlooking the city's tiles,<br>The sunset's fires, and the clouds of snow,<br>And the river wandering miles and miles.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Just one picture hung in the room,<br>The saddest story that art can tell--<br>Dante and Virgil in lurid gloom<br>Watching the lovers flow through Hell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Wretched enough was I sometimes,<br>Pinched, and harassed with vain desires;<br>But thicker than clover sprung the rhymes<br>As I dwelt as a sparrow among the spires.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Midnight filled my slumbers with song;<br>Music haunted my dreams by day.<br>Now I listen and wait and long,<br>But the Delphian airs have died away.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I wonder and wonder how it befell:<br>Suddenly I had friends in crowds;<br>I bade the house-tops a long farewell;<br>'Good-by,' I cried, 'to the stars and the clouds!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'But thou, rare soul, thou hast dwelt with me,<br>Spirit of Poesy! thou divine<br>Breath of the morning, thou shalt be,<br>Goddess! for ever and ever mine.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the woman I loved was now my bride,<br>And the house I wanted was my own;<br>I turned to the Goddess satisfied--<br>But the Goddess had somehow flown.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Flown, and I fear she will never return;<br>I am much too sleek and happy for her,<br>Whose lovers must hunger and waste and burn<br>Ere the beautiful heathen heart will stir.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I call--but she does not stoop to my cry;<br>I wait--but she lingers, and ah! so long!<br>It was not so in the years gone by,<br>When she touched my lips with chrism of song.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I swear I will get me a garret again,<br>And adore, like a Parsee, the sunset's fires,<br>And lure the Goddess, by vigil and pain,<br>Up with the sparrows among the spires.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For a man should live in a garret aloof,<br>And have few friends, and go poorly clad,<br>With an old hat stopping the chink in the roof,<br>To keep the Goddess constant and glad.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Thomas+Bailey+Aldrich">Thomas Bailey Aldrich</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=529191" data-title="The Flight of the Goddess de Thomas Bailey Aldrich" data-description="A man should live in a garret aloof, And have few friends, and go poorly clad, With an old hat stopping the chink in the roof, To keep the Goddess constant and glad. Of old, when I walked on a rugged way, And gave much work but for little bread, ..."></div> </div> </div>

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