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THE PRAYER OF THE FLOWERS
It was the voice of the flowers on the West wind, the lovable, the
old, the lazy West wind, blowing ceaselessly, blowing sleepily, going
Greecewards.
"The woods have gone away, they have fallen and left us; men love
us no longer, we are lonely by moonlight. Great engines rush over
the beautiful fields, their ways lie hard and terrible up and down the
land.
"The cancrous cities spread over the grass, they clatter in their lairs
continually, they glitter about us blemishing the night.
"The woods are gone, O Pan, the woods, the woods. And thou art
far, O Pan, and far away."
I was standing by night between two railway embankments on the
edge of a Midland city. On one of them I saw the trains go by, once
in every two minutes, and on the other, the trains went by twice in
every five.
Quite close were the glaring factories, and the sky above them wore
the fearful look that it wears in dreams of fever.
The flowers were right in the stride of that advancing city, and
thence I heard them sending up their cry. And then I heard, beating
musically up wind, the voice of Pan reproving them from Arcady--
"Be patient a little, these things are not for long."
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