Classic Poem

Because he felt against his hundred years
the beating of the wings of Azrael,
the Master, he that watch'd o'er Afrit fears
building the Temple incorruptible,

palm-propt on guile of cedarn wands, uprears
his dreadful stature in the crystal cell
that thence, tho' death unsaint their magian spheres,
erect, his eyes might dwell, implacable.

So, when at last the worm-pierc'd cedar snapt
and, at the sound of his great fall, the Jinn
sail'd clamorously towards Eblis, disabused,

long since his temple-tomb stood builded apt
where we might feel the night that haunts our sin
vaster, that once a mighty spirit mused.