Page:The poems of Emma Lazarus volume 1.djvu/230

216 the vexed hubbub of our world of gain Roars round about me as I walk the street, The myriad noise of Traffic, and the beat Of Toil s incessant hammer, the fierce strain Of Struggle hand to hand and brain to brain, Ofttimes a sudden dream my sense will cheat, The gaudy shops, the sky-piled roofs retreat, And all at once I stand enthralled again Within a marble minster over-seas. I watch the solemn gold-stained gloom that creeps To kiss an alabaster tomb, where sleeps A lady twixt two knights stone effigies, And every day in dusky glory steeps Their sculptured slumber of five centuries.

NOT while the fever of the blood is strong, The heart throbs loud, the eyes are veiled, no less With passion than with tears, the Muse shall bless The poet-soul to help and soothe with song. Not then she bids his trembling lips express The aching gladness, the voluptuous pain. Life is his poem then ; flesh, sense, and brain One full-stringed lyre attuned to happiness.