Page:Poems of Emma Lazarus vol 2.djvu/257

Adown his open breast the blood flows there ;
Vainly he searched the ocean's deepest part,
The sea was empty and the shore was bare,
And for all nouriahment he brings his heart.
Sad, silent, on the stone, be gives his brood
His father-en trails and his father-blood,
Lulls with his love sablime his cruel pain,
And, watching on his breast the ruddy stain,
Swoons at the fatal banquet from excess,
0£ horror and voluptuous tenderness.
Sudden amidst the sacrifice divine,
Outworn with such protracted suffering.
He fears his flock may let him live and pine ;
Then up he starts, expands his mighty wing,
Beating his heart, and with a savage cry
Bids a farewell of such funereal tone
That the scared seabirds from tbeir rock-nests fly,
And the late traveller on the beach alone
Commends bis soul to God — for death floats by.
Even such, O poet, is the poet's fate.
His life sustains the creatures of a day.
The banquets served upon his feasts of state
Are like the pelican's — sublime as they.
And when he tells the world of hopes betrayed,
Forgetfulness and grief, of love and hate,
His music does not make the heart dilate,
His eloquence is as an unsheathed blade.
Tracing a glittering circle in mid-air.
While blood drips from the edges keen and bare.