With oaken staff and swinging lantern bright,
He strolls at midnight when the world is still
Through dismal lanes and plazas plumed with light,
Guarding the drowsy thousands in Seville.
Gazing upon his ever star-thronged sky,
With careless step he wanders to and fro;
The gloomy streets reëcho with his cry,
His slow, low, sad,...
Carved by a mighty race whose vanished hands
Formed empires more destructible than I,
In sultry silence I forever lie,
Wrapped in the shifting garment of the sands.
Below me, Pharaoh’s scintillating bands
With clashings of loud cymbals have passed by,
And the eternal reverence of the sky
Falls royally on me and all my lands.
The...
Near strange, weird temples, where the Ganges’ tide
Bathes domed Lahore, I watched, by spice-trees fanned,
Her agile form in some quaint saraband,
A marvel of passionate chastity and pride.
Nude to the loins, superb and leopard-eyed,
With fragrant roses in her jewelled hand,
Before some Kaât-drunk Rajah, mute and grand,
Her flexile body...
Among the priceless gems and treasures rare
Old Versailles shelters in its halls sublime,
I can recall one faded image fair,
A girl’s sad face, praised once in every clime.
Poets have sung, in rich and happy rhyme,
Her violet eyes, the wonder of her hair.
An art-bijou it was, but dimmed by time,
A dreamy pastel of La Valliere!
I,...
Toil on, poor muser, to attain that goal
Where Art conceals its grandest, noblest prize;
Count every tear that dims your aching eyes,
Count all the years that seem as days, and roll
The death-tides slowly on; count all your sighs;
Search the wide, wondrous earth from pole to pole,
Tear unbelief from out your martyred soul;
Succumb not,...
