Now we, returning from the vaulted domes
Of our colossal sleep, come home to find
A tall metropolis of catacombs
Erected down the gangways of our mind.
Green alleys where we reveled have become
The infernal haunt of demon dangers;
Both seraph song and violins are dumb;
Each clock tick consecrates the death of strangers
Backward we traveled to reclaim the day
Before we fell, like Icarus, undone;
All we find are altars in decay-
And profane words scrawled black across the sun.
Still, stubbornly we try to crack the nut
In which the riddle of our race is shut.
-Sylvia Plath
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