The Poems of Emma Lazarus Volume I Part 15

Familiar faces out of reach we see.

Fain would we scream, to shatter with a cry The tangled woof of hideous fantasy,

When, lo! the air grows clear, a soft fair sky Shines over head: sharp pain dissolves in peace; Beneath the silver archway quietly

We float away: all troublous visions cease.

By a strange sense of joy we are possessed, Body and spirit soothed in perfect rest.

VIII. The End of the Song.

What dainty note of long-drawn melody Athwart our dreamless sleep rings sweet and clear, Till all the fumes of slumber are brushed by,

And with awakened consciousness we hear The pipe of birds? Look forth! The sane, white day Blesses the hilltops, and the sun is near.

All misty phantoms slowly roll away With the night's vapors toward the western sky.

The Real enchants us, the fresh breath of hay

Blows toward us; soft the meadow-gra.s.ses lie, Bearded with dew; the air is a caress; The sudden sun o'ertops the boundary

Of eastern hills, the morning joyousness Thrills tingling through the frame; life's pulse beats strong; Night's fancies melt like dew. So ends the song!

ON THE PROPOSAL TO ERECT A MONUMENT IN ENGLAND TO LORD BYRON.

The gra.s.s of fifty Aprils hath waved green Above the spent heart, the Olympian head, The hands crost idly, the shut eyes unseen, Unseeing, the locked lips whose song hath fled; Yet mystic-lived, like some rich, tropic flower, His fame puts forth fresh blossoms hour by hour; Wide spread the laden branches dropping dew On the low, laureled brow misunderstood, That bent not, neither bowed, until subdued By the last foe who crowned while he o'erthrew.

Fair was the Easter Sabbath morn when first Men heard he had not wakened to its light: The end had come, and time had done its worst, For the black cloud had fallen of endless night.

Then in the town, as Greek accosted Greek, 'T was not the wonted festal words to speak, "Christ is arisen," but "Our chief is gone,"

With such wan aspect and grief-smitten head As when the awful cry of "Pan is dead!"

Filled echoing hill and valley with its moan.

"I am more fit for death than the world deems,"

So spake he as life's light was growing dim, And turned to sleep as unto soothing dreams.

What terrors could its darkness hold for him, Familiar with all anguish, but with fear Still unacquainted? On his martial bier They laid a sword, a helmet, and a crown-- Meed of the warrior, but not these among His voiceless lyre, whose silent chords unstrung Shall wait--how long?--for touches like his own.

An alien country mourned him as her son, And hailed him hero: his sole, fitting tomb Were Theseus' temple or the Parthenon, Fondly she deemed. His brethren bare him home, Their exiled glory, past the guarded gate Where England's Abbey shelters England's great.

Afar he rests whose very name hath shed New l.u.s.tre on her with the song he sings.

So Shakespeare rests who scorned to lie with kings, Sleeping at peace midst the unhonored dead.

And fifty years suffice to overgrow With gentle memories the foul weeds of hate That shamed his grave. The world begins to know Her loss, and view with other eyes his fate.

Even as the cunning workman brings to pa.s.s The sculptor's thought from out the unwieldy ma.s.s Of shapeless marble, so Time lops away The stony crust of falsehood that concealed His just proportions, and, at last revealed, The statue issues to the light of day,

Most beautiful, most human. Let them fling The first stone who are tempted even as he, And have not swerved. When did that rare soul sing The victim's shame, the tyrant's eulogy, The great belittle, or exalt the small, Or grudge his gift, his blood, to disenthrall The slaves of tyranny or ignorance?

Stung by fierce tongues himself, whose rightful fame Hath he reviled? Upon what n.o.ble name Did the winged arrows of the barbed wit glance?

The years' thick, clinging curtains backward pull, And show him as he is, crowned with bright beams, "Beauteous, and yet not all as beautiful As he hath been or might be; Sorrow seems Half of his immortality."* He needs No monument whose name and song and deeds Are graven in all foreign hearts; but she His mother, England, slow and last to wake, Needs raise the votive shaft for her fame's sake: Hers is the shame if such forgotten be!

May, 1875.

*"Cain," Act I. Scene 1.

ARABESQUE.

On a background of pale gold I would trace with quaint design, Penciled fine, Brilliant-colored, Moorish scenes, Mosques and crescents, pages, queens, Line on line, That the prose-world of to-day Might the gorgeous Past's array Once behold.

On the magic painted shield Rich Granada's Vega green Should be seen; Crystal fountains, coolness flinging, Hanging gardens' skyward springing Emerald sheen; Ruddy when the daylight falls, Crowned Alhambra's beetling walls Stand revealed;

Balconies that overbrow Field and city, vale and stream.

In a dream Lulled the drowsy landscape basks; Mark the gleam Silvery of each white-swathed peak!

Mountain-airs caress the cheek, Fresh from the snow.

Here in Lindaraxa's bower The immortal roses bloom; In the room Lion-guarded, marble-paven, Still the fountain leaps to heaven.

But the doom Of the banned and stricken race Overshadows every place, Every hour.

Where fair Lindaraxa dwelt Flits the bat on velvet wings; Mute the strings Of the broken mandoline; The Pavilion of the Queen Widely flings Vacant windows to the night; Moonbeams kiss the floor with light Where she knelt.

Through these halls that people stepped Who through darkling centuries Held the keys Of all wisdom, truth, and art, In a Paradise apart, Lapped in ease, Sagely pondering deathless themes, While, befooled with monkish dreams, Europe slept.

Where shall they be found today?

Yonder hill that frets the sky "The last Sigh Of the Moor" is named still.

There the ill-starred Boabdil Bade good-by To Granada and to Spain, Where the Crescent ne'er again Holdeth sway.