Classic Poem

Where Soliman-ben-Daoud sleeps, unshown
to mortal eye, the vaulted bay of gloom
stagnates, aloft, into the pendent stone,
his Temple's roots, long wither'd in his tomb.

Chin-high against his flaming sword, alone,
brooding far hence in heaven's untarnish'd bloom,
a seraph bars all passage to the throne
where, priestly dight, the Master bides the doom.

Dully his mitre blazes o'er his brow
whereunder the dead eyes, wide-set, avow
the terror of the day that he awaits:

and, o'er his mitre's peak, his word of might,
figured in solid fire, irradiates
its sterile secret into oblivious night.