Classic Poem

How changed from that bright orb
The rolling skies had erst rejoiced to see;
Whereto the orient sun was wont to send,
As to some eaglet orb that loved the light,
His earliest beam to wake his welcomer —
Signal to all of worship! Now, alas!
Cloaked in impenetrable night it glode
A black abomination through the skies,
A reptile world abhorred of all and shunned.
Then fire was used for light, and each one bare
With him a pitchy torch which reeked of hell;
Supplied by those deceptive guests who now —
Their doubtful shapes resumed — incited strife,
Commutual hatred, war; and ground to dust
The victims of their mystic mockeries,
With wrongs elaborate and self torturing sins.

She who, so prompt to rule alone, had deemed
Herself a Queen for aye they laughed to scorn,
Deposed and dungeoned, chained as mad — and slain —
But that their hate preserved her. There she lay,
In wretchedness repentant, wrecked in soul;
Scarce floating on the ages. How she longed
Then, for her sister's voice — and hoped 'gainst hope
For other accent than her own lone lips
Re-echoed from the walls that coffined her; —
For one embrace once prized beyond all price!
But such desire as yet might nought avail.
Be sure the Great Perfector hath well earned
All that He gladdeneth over, as His own,
Throughout the threefold world; though Him it wrought
Measureless dole, for the Divine is born
Ever of bitterness; and well I ween,
Where sacrifice is not is never fire.
There lay the stricken despot humbled down
Into a penitent angel, sad and meek.

Bright city, hallowed temple down were razed —
Nay, e'en their deep foundations rooted up;
The sacred groves were fired, and tree by tree,
Charred into naked blackness; all the soil
Was grisly ashes only. Day and night
The skies rang with the cries of myriads' woe,
Till the stars shuddered, and the orb was shook
Wherein I watched the awakening of the maid.

Close by her feet, insculptured, on the couch
Whereon she lay, was seen a child who held
An hour glass in his hand. Ten times it turned,
Upwards and downwards; at the twelfth it fell,
And falling broke; and as it fell she rose;
Rose, like a lily bending o'er its stem,
Gently until she stood.

And hark, she cried
Beloved! hearest thou not that wail of woe?
I know it, whence it comes. Oh let us hence
Hasten, and Heaven beseech to save, to save!

Then stirred the dove divine, imbosomed here;
And I obeyed its impulse as of God,
From whom it came; and calling to my side
A cloudlet — like a silver swan that sailed
The deeps of air — we clasped its snowy down,
And swiftly winged our way; — till drawing nigh,
Again, that dark apostate orb, the tears
Of my beloved one fell like raindrops down.

Thus moved, I said, unto the air, be fire;
And to the waters, be ye flames; and straight
It was so; for it seemed but meet to purge
The sanctuary in this wise, so defiled.

From side to side, from end to end, it burned,
From pole to pole it blazed — from sea to sea;
Till, in the central city of that sphere,
Now shining ruins only, from the height
Of one immoveable mountain monument,
Forked like a double pyramid, which sole
Survived the splendid wreck, was spied, far off
On the horizon the unbroken ring
Of round beleaguering fire, which swift as thought,
The nations all into one death-doomed flock,
Relentless, hunted.