Page:The poems of Emma Lazarus volume 1.djvu/297

Rh I will gainsay you not. A beauteous soul can shed her proper glory On mean surroundings. I have likewise dreamed, Nor am I yet awake. This morn hath been A feast for mind and eye. Yon shepherd-prince, Whom angels visit in his sleep, shall crown Your father s brow with a still fresher laurel, And link in equal fame the Spanish artist With the Lord’s chosen prophet.

That may be, For in the form of that worn wayfarer I drew myself. So have I slept beneath The naked heavens, pillowed by a stone, With no more shelter than the wind-stirred branches, While the thick dews of our Valencian nights Drenched my rude weeds, and chilled through blood and bone. Yet to me also were the heavens revealed, And angels visited my dreams.

How strange That you, dear master, standing on the crown Of a long life s continuous ascent, Should backward glance unto such dark beginnings.