Mandragora/The Daughter of the Sphinx
THE DAUGHTER OF THE SPHINX
MY mind is a plain with blackened stalks
And the crumbling stones of a buried city,
Where hooded desolation walks,
And all alone in an empty sky
A solitary kite sails by.
But yet, because of the sudden pity
Of the youngest daughter of the sphinx,
Great Amnion on my burden winks
And I have found — ah, none too soon!
A little pallid petalled flower.
Hid in the dust of a fallen tower.
With a phantom lustre like the moon;
And now I can watch the kite sail by,
And the long, long shadows among the stones,
And the blackened stalks and the empty sky,
And the wind-blown dust of ancient bones.
With strange exultant serenity,
And across that plain which is my soul,
Soft incense-clouds of healing roll
With balm, and the breath of a whispered spell,
And an opiate-rain ineffable.
For on him whose mind is scarred deep.
With secrets sad as the dead who sleep.
On him whose soul is a buried city.
The daughter of the sphinx has pity.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1963, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 60 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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