THE CORAL INSECT. 20i
There are snares enough on the tented field, 'Mid the blossomed sweets that the valleys yield, There are serpents to coil ere the flowers are up, There's a poison drop in man's purest cup, There are foes that watch for his cradle-breath, And why need ye sow the floods with death ?
With mouldering bones the deeps are white, From the ice-clad pole to the tropics bright ; The mermaid hath twisted her fingers cold With the mesh of the sea-boy's curls of gold; And the gods of ocean have frowned to see The mariner's bed 'mid their halls of glee. Hath earth no graves, that ye thus must spread The boundless sea with the thronging dead ?
Ye build ! ye build ! but ye enter not in ;
Like the tribes whom the desert devoured in their sin,
From the land of promise ye fade and die,
Ere its verdure gleams forth on your wearied eye.
As the cloud-crowned pyramid's founders sleep
Noteless and lost in oblivion deep,
Ye slumber unmarked 'mid the desolate plain,
While the wonder and pride of your works remain.
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