Fata Morgana

So I at last attain All I have longed to gain; The fairy fleeting shade, The bliss so long delayed, - Now stress and strife are past, I seize at last. Yet is it well at all? I trod her echoing hall, I clasped her robe, and caught: Lo, is it this I sought, This hollow sprite I see That gibes at me? I took her magic cup, I drank the charmed wine up. Where was the sweetness then, - The fabled prize of men? Lo, bitterness was there And dark despair. O for the road again, The unrewarded pain, The hard, rough, wayside bed, The stars above my head, Hope like a springing fire, Doubts, dreams, desire.