Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/150

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hast thy calling to some palace floor,

Most gracious singer of high poems! where

The dancers will break footing from the care

Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.

And dost thou lift this house's latch too poor

For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear

To let thy music drop here unaware

In folds of golden fulness at my door?

Look up and see the casement broken in,

The bats and owlets builders in the roof!

My cricket chirps against thy mandolin.

Hush! call no echo up in further proof

Of desolation! there's a voice within

That weeps. . as thou must sing. . alone, aloof.

my heavy heart up solemnly,

As once Electra her sepulchral urn,

And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn

The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see

What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,

And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn

Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn

Could tread them out to darkness utterly,

It might be well perhaps. But if instead

Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow

The grey dust up,. . . those laurels on thine head,

O My beloved, will not shield thee so,

That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred

The hair beneath. Stand farther off then! Go.