NEVADA.
Sphinx, down whose rugged face
The sliding centuries their furrows cleave
By sun, and frost, and cloudburst, scarce to leave
Perceptible a trace
Of age or sorrow;
Faint hints of yesterdays with no tomorrow;—
My mind regards thee with a questioning eye,
To know thy secret, high.
If Theban mystery,
With head of woman, soaring, birdlike wings
And serpent's tail on lion's trunk, were things
Puzzling in history;
And men invented
For it an origin which represented
Chimera and a monster double-headed,
By myths Phenician wedded—
Their issue being this—
This most chimerical and wondrous thing,
From whose dumb mouth not even the gods could wring
Truth, nor anthithesis:
Then what I think is,
This creature—being chief among men's sphinxes—
Is eloquent, and overflows with story,
Beside thy silence hoary!
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