Classic Poem

In Eblis' ward now fall'n, where wisdom rose,
beyond the East and past the fane-strown sands,
are jasper caverns hewn of Afrit hands,
whereover Caf hath hung its huge repose.

There, in the limpid pave, a cloudy rose
mirrors eternal agony, in bands
of saddening purple shed from shrouded strands
where the snared sun a fix'd disaster glows.

A ruby of harden'd flame, an ice-bound woe,
burns in their crystal breast whose wizard brow
was gemm'd with name of Soliman long before

him shaped that pluck'd the golden apple low:
they royal with this only magic now
that, dying, they die not for evermore.