On Re-reading "The Sick King in Bokhara"

As one grows weary dragging at the chain

Of circumstance which, unrelentingly,

Binds him to futile, joyless drudgery,

Far from the skyey paths youth thought to gain;

Though mocked by hope and teased by self-disdain,

Forgets his griefs in wingéd sympathy

When one more blest and worthier to be free

Triumphant rises from earth's sordid plain;

So, to this fragrant oriental story—

Bright, in the midst of old-world wretchedness,

With love's benignant and eternal glory—

We turn who fevered and athirst have dwelt

In desert places and with tears confess

How deeply he who wrote has thought for man—and felt.  Germantown, Penn., June, 1886.