Classic Poem

I traverse the humdrum station,
I enter the well-known street;
But a bedlamite incantation
Transfigures the crowds I meet.

Their bodily shapes have vanished
To pallid planets of gholes;
And the city of earth, astonished,
Beholds a people of souls.

Nor neighbor I see, nor brother,
Nor lover nor foe I ken:
And they know not one the other,
These phantom women and men.

For many once quaint and homely
Outglitter the saints themselves,
And many once tall and comely
Are dwarfish and weird as elves.

And many who chided revel
Discover the lurking beast;
And the leer of the doubting devil
Supplants the smile of the priest.

The worshipped and trusted maiden,
The friend of my bosom, come;
But the darling would ruin Aidenn,
The friend is a scowling gnome.

I scout them in fierce derision,
Responses of fiends blaspheme;
Then in anger I rend the vision
And trust in men as they seem.