I DARES the lama, most fleet of the sons of the wind, The lion to rouse from his skull-covered lair? When the tiger approaches can the fastfleeting hind Repose trust in his footsteps of air? No! Abandoned he sinks in a trance of despair, The monster transfixes his prey, On the sand flows his life-blood away; Whilst India's rocks to his death-yells reply, Protracting the horrible harmony. II Yet the fowl of the desert, when danger encroaches, Dares fearless to perish defending her brood, Though the fiercest of cloud-piercing tyrants approaches, Thirsting -- ay, thirsting for blood; And demands, like mankind, his brother for food; Yet more lenient, more gentle than they; For hunger, not glory, the prey Must perish. Revenge does not howl in the dead, Nor ambition with fame crown the murderer's head. III Though weak as the lama that bounds on the mountains, And endued not with fast-fleeting footsteps of air, Yet, yet will I draw from the purest of fountains, Though a fiercer than tiger is there. Though more dreadful than death, it seatters despair, Though its shadow eclipses the day, And the darkness of deepest dismay Spreads the influence of soul-chilling terror around, And lowers on the corpses, that rot on the ground. IV They came to the fountain to draw from its stream, Waves too pure, too celestial, for mortals to see: They bathed for a while in its silvery beam, Then perished, and perished like me. For in vain from the grasp of the Bigot I flee; The most tenderly loved of my soul Are slaves to his hated control. He pursues me, he blasts me! 'Tis in vain that I fly; -- What remains, but to curse him, -- to curse him and die? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LIGHTS OF NEW YORK by SARA TEASDALE THE SENSITIVE PLANT by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY THE END OF IT by FRANCIS THOMPSON MY MOTHER'S GARDEN by ALICE E. ALLEN THE REASON by LEONARD BACON (1887-1954) WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM by BERNARD BARTON CARCASSONNE (SUGGESTED BY LORD DUNSANY'S STORY) by BERTON BRALEY |