Classic Poem

In the inmost fieriest circle
Of the secret southern lands
Where the emerald-roofed oasis
With its bamboo columns stands,

Ringed with tall, fantastic palm trees,
Like a single-filing wood.
Black and gaunt as Behometh,
There the primal Negro stood.

Bowed his massy, glistening shoulders,
Bared his mighty, grinning teeth,
Screwed his blind and heavy eyelids
Scarce a glister shot beneath.

“Are not all things mine to please me,
Feather, stone (banana too),
Am I not the latest, largest,
Strongest of the things in view?”

Grinned the dreamer, and before him
Reared a creeping goblin-growth,
Heavy-handed, many-jointed,
Dragged its ugly length in sloth.

Flared the red flamingoes upwards,
Sailed the ibis in their wake;
Sullen, floating, squat, flat-headed,
Thus it raised its voice and spake:

“Are not all things thine to govern,
Art thou not the lord of dust,
Stronger than the laws that made thee,
Subtler than the powers that trust?

“Grasp the reins of power and passion,
Be as gods are where you stand,
Master pleasure, vengeance, knowledge,
Lo, the fruit is to your hand!”

Slow, the giant, round whose temples
Danced the palm leaves like a wreath,
Squirmed, and took the big banana
With one clash of his great teeth.

At his face there sprang a darkness,
Dizzy, stunning like a blow,
And he never told what followed,
Seeing that he did not know.

Till at last the twain woke slowly,
Rubbed their knees and stared and smiled,
For they sat alone together
On a dumb and dismal wild.