Page:The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe (Volume II).djvu/128

TAMERLANE That she might deem it nought beside
 * The moment's converse; in her eyes

I read, perhaps too carelessly—
 * A mingled feeling with my own—

The flush on her bright cheek, to me
 * Seem'd to become a queenly throne

Too well that I should let it be
 * Light in the wilderness alone.

I wrapped myself in grandeur then
 * And donn'd a visionary crown
 * Yet it was not that Fantasy
 * Had thrown her mantle over me—

But that, among the rabble—men.
 * Lion ambition is chain'd down—

And crouches to a keeper's hand— Not so in deserts where the grand— The wild—the terrible conspire With their own breath to fan his fire.

Look 'round thee now on Samarcand!—
 * Is she not queen of Earth? her pride

Above all cities? in her hand
 * Their destinies? in all beside

Of glory which the world hath known Stands she not nobly and alone? Falling—her veriest stepping-tone Shall form the pedestal of a throne— And who her sovereign? Timour—he
 * Whom the astonished people saw

Striding o'er empires haughtily
 * A diadem 'd outlaw!