Sonnet V

Alan Seeger

A tide of beauty with returning May

Floods the fair city; from warm pavements fume

Odors endeared; down avenues in bloom

The chestnut-trees with phallic spires are gay.

Over the terrace flows the thronged cafe;

The boulevards are streams of hurrying sound;

And through the streets, like veins when they abound,

The lust for pleasure throbs itself away.

Here let me live, here let me still pursue

Phantoms of bliss that beckon and recede, —

Thy strange allurements, City that I love,

Maze of romance, where I have followed too

The dream Youth treasures of its dearest need

And stars beyond thy towers bring tidings of.