Green changed to white, emerald to opal;
nothing was changed.
The man let the water trickle gentle into his glass,
and as the green clouded,
a mist fell from his mind.
Then he drank opaline.
Memories and terrors beset him.
The past tore after him like a panther, and
through the blackness of the present he
saw the luminous tiger eyes of things to be.
But he drank opaline.
And that obscure night of the soul,
and the valley of humiliation,through
which he stumbled, were forgotten.
He saw blue vistas of undiscovered countries,
high prospects and a quiet, carressing sea.
The past shed its perfume over him,
today held his hand as if it were a little child,
and tomorrow shone like a white star;
nothing was changed.
He drank opaline.
The man had known the obscure night of the soul,
and lay even now in the valley of humiliation;
and the tiger menace of the things to be was red in the skies.
But for a little while he had forgotten.
Green changed to white, emerald to opal;
nothing was changed.
by Ernest Dowson
