Classic Poem

TO A. L .

When with hammers of iron Cambyses had broken
The statue of Memnon that sang to the sun,
And the desolate marble no longer gave token
That twilight had ended and dawn had begun,
The priesthood who long had been punctual and choral
To wait on their god as the stars waned away,
Drowsed on in their beds while the clouds flushed auroral,
Or droned in the desecrate temple of Day.

So the slow wave of fashion ebbed down from the wonder,
And worshippers failed at the bountiful shrine, —
Where never the shock of the sun aroused thunder,
Or music welled forth from the stone un-divine;
Yet, when all had deserted, one chieftain came creeping
Through reeds and through grasses where Memnon lay bare,
Night after dull night, when the priests were all sleeping,
Came yearning and dreaming, and dared not despair.

To him, so the tale runs, one morning when slender
The naked beam flushed on the shattered white stone,
A word came in message, so thrilling, so tender,
It sobbed like a harp-string that dies in a moan;
" My son! all is done, all is done! " and so ended;
He fell on his face, and, by gift of the god,
In the growing blue blaze of day, African, splendid,
His heart sank as cold as the granite he trod.

So be it with all of my being that's mortal,
If ever that tyrant, the World, should destroy
The wonderful image which stands at my portal
And sings to my spirit of hope and of joy;
When the rose-flame of thought on that marble illusion
Rings music no more from its sensitive heart,
When I've waited and watched, and the faithful delusion
Sighs forth a farewell, and I feel it depart; —

Ah! then in the gloom of my broken ideal,
In the concave moon-shadow away from the sun,
When the horrors of earth are grown rugged and real,
By some fortunate stroke may my coil be undone;
Ah! better to pass to the sullen dumb hollows
Where sounds never jar on the ear of the dead,
Than to learn that the air which my destiny follows
By some trick of a huckster was fostered and fed.