A New Pilgrimage: Sonnet VII

Ah, Paris, Paris! What an echo rings
Still in those syllables of vain delight!
What voice of what dead pleasures on what wings
Of Maenad laughters pulsing through the night!
How bravely her streets smile on me! How bright
Her shops, her houses, fair sepulchral things,
Stored with the sins of men forgotten quite,
The loves of mountebanks, the lusts of kings!
What message has she to me on this day
Of my new life? Shall I, a pilgrim wan,
Sit at her board and revel at her play,
As in the days of old? Nay, this is done.
It cannot be; and yet I love her well
With her broad roads and pleasant paths to Hell.