Sirenen

"And then, into his stuffy room, slipped the singing perfume of a wall-flower on a ruined tower, and with it the sweetness of hot ivy. He heard the 'yellow bees in the ivy bloom.' Wind whipped over the open hills - this very wind that laboured drearily through the London fog.

And - he was caught. The darkness melted from the city. The fog whisked off into an azure sky. The roar of traffic turned into the booming of the sea. There was a whistling among cordage and the floor swayed to and fro. He saw a sailor touch his cap and pocket the two-franc piece. The syren hooted - omnious sound that had started him on many a journey of adventure - and the roar of London became mere insignificant clatter of a child's toy carriages.

He loved that syren's call; there was something deep and pitiless in it. It drew the wanderers forth from cities everywhere:

'Leave your known world behind you, and come with me for better or for worse! The anchor is up; it is too late to change. Only - beware! You should know curious things - and alone!' "

- Algernon Blackwood, 1912