Hops

STRANGE deeds transpire
Where the midnight fire
Of the hop-pipe lanterns glow.
And misty shapes,
Like cringing apes,
Go flitting to and fro.
There is beauty rare
In the smokers' lair
Where the opium tapers blow.
And the fallen sigh,
And some men die,
As the fancies come and go.
For the dreams they dream
Are dreams of love,
Of memories fond and sweet.
Then they wake in the gloom
To their earthly doom
And totter away to the street.
And the souls that sigh
In the night, and die,
To the land of their dreams are bound.
For their bodies stark
'Mid the damp and the dark
'Tis a city's nameless mound.
But the ones who are left
With the coming of night,
Are back to their cribs in the wall.
Then—the picture fades
I awake with a start—
'Tis a dream I have had—that is all."