Chrysalides

NIGHT-BLUE skies of thine,
Egypt, and thy dead who may not rest,
“Who with wide eyes
Stand staring in the darkness of the mine !
Thy woman, Egypt, with her breast
Two cups of carven gold;
And hands that no more rise
In praise, or supplication, or to sound
The timbrel in the dance !
White is thy noontide glare,
But no keen glance
Of yet created sun
Can pierce the deeps and caverns of thy dead.
They are overspread
With a new earth, where new men come and go,
And sleep when all is done;
While far below,
Shut from the upper air,
These stirless figures, bound
In awful cerements, must forever wait.

There is another land,
Where in a valley once the god Pan slept,
Under the young blue sky, between two peaks ;
And here, a hero, running as one seeks
For fame, with ardor which his strength outstepped,
Fell dying in the stillness; slow-breathing lay
The rounded marble limbs in the green grass.
An eagle, pausing on his fiery way,
Down swooped. Lo, as he soared, alas !
Nearing his awful steep,
Where only the dews weep,
And bearing in his clutches that bright form,
He heard the hero’s voice :
Eat, bird, and feed thyself ! This morsel choice
Shall give thy claws a span ;
This courage of a man
Shall bid thy pinions swell,
And by my strength thy wings shall grow an ell.”