The Poems of Emma Lazarus Volume I Part 16

Vanished like the wind that blows, Whither shall we seek their trace On earth's face?

The gigantic wheel of fate, Crus.h.i.+ng all things soon or late, Now a race, Now a single life o'erruns, Now a universe of suns, Now a rose.

AGAMEMNON'S TOMB.

Uplift the ponderous, golden mask of death, And let the sun s.h.i.+ne on him as it did How many thousand years agone! Beneath This worm-defying, uncorrupted lid, Behold the young, heroic face, round-eyed, Of one who in his full-flowered manhood died; Of n.o.bler frame than creatures of to-day, Swathed in fine linen cerecloths fold on fold, With carven weapons wrought of bronze and gold, Accoutred like a warrior for the fray.

We gaze in awe at these huge-modeled limbs, Shrunk in death's narrow house, but hinting yet Their ancient majesty; these sightless rims Whose living eyes the eyes of Helen met; The speechless lips that ah! what tales might tell Of earth's morning-tide when G.o.ds did dwell Amidst a generous-fas.h.i.+oned, G.o.d-like race, Who dwarf our puny semblance, and who won The secret soul of Beauty for their own, While all our art but crudely apes their grace.

We gather all the precious relics up, The golden b.u.t.tons chased with wondrous craft, The sculptured trinkets and the crystal cup, The sheathed, bronze sword, the knife with brazen haft.

Fain would we wrest with curious eyes from these Unnumbered long-forgotten histories, The deeds heroic of this mighty man, On whom once more the living daylight beams, To shame our littleness, to mock our dreams, And the abyss of centuries to span.

Yet could we rouse him from his blind repose, How might we meet his searching questionings, Concerning all the follies, wrongs, and woes, Since his great day whom men call King of Kings, Victorious Agamemnon? How might we Those large, clear eyes confront, which scornfully Would view us as a poor, degenerate race, Base-souled and mean-proportioned? What reply Give to the beauty-loving Greek's heart-cry, Seeking his ancient G.o.ds in vacant s.p.a.ce?

What should he find within a world grown cold, Save doubt and trouble? To his sunny creed A thousand gloomy, warring sects succeed.

How of the Prince of Peace might he be told, When over half the world the war-cloud lowers?

How would he mock these faltering hopes of ours, Who knows the secret now of death and fate!

Humbly we gaze on the colossal frame, And mutely we accept the mortal shame, Of men degraded from a high estate.

SIC SEMPER LIBERATORIBUS!

March 13, 1881.

As one who feels the breathless nightmare grip His heart-strings, and through visioned horrors fares, Now on a thin-ledged chasm's rock-crumbling lip, Now on a tottering pinnacle that dare The front of heaven, while always unawares Weird monsters start above, around, beneath, Each glaring from some uglier mask of death,

So the White Czar imperial progress made Through terror-haunted days. A shock, a cry Whose echoes ring the globe--the spectre's laid.

Hurled o'er the abyss, see the crowned martyr lie Resting in peace--fear, change, and death gone by.

Fit end for nightmare--mist of blood and tears, Red climax to the slow, abortive years.

The world draws breath--one long, deep-shuddering sigh, At that which dullest brain prefigured clear As swift-sure bolt from thunder-threatening sky.

How heaven-anointed humblest lots appear Beside his glittering eminence of fear; His spiked crown, sackcloth purple, poisoned cates, His golden palace honey-combed with hates.

Well is it done! A most heroic plan, Which after myriad plots succeeds at last In robbing of his life this poor old man, Whose sole offense--his birthright--has but pa.s.sed To fresher blood, with younger strength recast.

What men are these, who, clamoring to be free, Would b.e.s.t.i.a.lize the world to what they be?

Whose sons are they who made the snow-wreathed head Their frenzy's target? In their Russian veins, What alien current urged on to smite him dead, Whose word had loosed a million Russian chains?

What brutes were they for whom such speechless pains, So royally endured, no human thrill Awoke, in hearts drunk with the l.u.s.t to kill?

Not brutes! No tiger of the wilderness, No jackal of the jungle, bears such brand As man's black heart, who shrinks not to confess The desperate deed of his deliberate hand.

Our kind, our kin, have done this thing. We stand Bowed earthward, red with shame, to see such wrong Prorogue Love's cause and Truth's--G.o.d knows how long!

DON RAFAEL.

"I would not have," he said, "Tears, nor the black pall, nor the wormy grave, Grief's hideous panoply I would not have Round me when I am dead.

"Music and flowers and light, And choric dances to guitar and flute, Be these around me when my lips are mute, Mine eyes are sealed from sight.

"So let me lie one day, One long, eternal day, in suns.h.i.+ne bathed, In cerements of silken tissue swathed, Smothered 'neath flowers of May.

"One perfect day of peace, Or ere clean flame consume my fleshly veil, My life--a gilded vapor--shall exhale, Brief as a sigh--and cease.

"But ere the torch be laid To my unshrinking limbs by some true hand, Athwart the orange-fragrant laughing land, Bring many a dark-eyed maid

"From the bright, sea-kissed town; My beautiful, beloved enemies, Gemmed as the dew, voluptuous as the breeze, Each in her festal gown.

"All those through whom I learned The sweet of folly and the pains of love, My Rose, my Star, my Comforter, my Dove, For whom, poor moth, I burned.

"Loves of a day, and hour, Or pa.s.sions (vowed eternal) of a year, Though each be strange to each, to me all dear As to the bee the flower.

"Around me they shall move In languid contra dances, and shall shed Their smiling eyebeams as I were not dead, But quick to flash back love.

"Something not alien quite To tender ruth, perchance their breast shall fill, Seeing him that was so mobile grown so still, The fiery-veined so white.

"And when the dance is o'er, The pinched guitar, the smitten tambourine, Have ceased their rhythmic beat,--oh, friends of mine, On my rich bier, then pour

"The garlands that ye wear, The happy rose that on your bosom breathes, The fresh-culled cl.u.s.ters and the dewy wreaths That crown your fragrant hair.