I love to sit alone and gaze on it,
And let my fancy wander through its towns,
Float on its seas and rivers—interchange
Communion with its strange inhabitants:
People its cities with fantastic shapes,
Fierce, wild, barbaric forms—all head and tail,
With monstrous horns, and blear and bloodshot eyes,
As all should have who deal in wickedness!
Enter Phyllon.
Oh, Phyllon! picture to thyself a town
Peopled with men and women! At each turn,
Men—wicked men—then, farther on, more men,
Then women—then again more men—more men—
Men, women, everywhere—all ripe for crime,
All ghastly in the lurid light of sin!
Enter Selene.
Phyl. In truth, dear sister, if man's face and form
Were a true index to his character.
He were a hideous thing to look upon;
But man, alas! is formed as we are formed.
False from the first, he comes into the world
Bearing a smiling lie upon his face,
That he may cheat ere he can use his tongue.
Zay. Oh! I have heard these things, but heed them not.
I like to picture him as he should be,
Unsightly and unclean. I like to pair
