Page:The poems of Emma Lazarus volume 1.djvu/90

76 Nor understands? Nay, thou shalt bless and pray,— Pray, for the pure heart, purged by prayer, divines And seeth when the bolder eyes are blind. Worship and wonder,—these befit a man At every hour; and mayhap will the gods Yet work a miracle for knees that bend And hands that supplicate.&quot; Then all they knew A sudden sense of awe, and bowed their heads Beneath the stripling s gaze: Admetus fell, Crushed by that gentle touch, and cried aloud : &quot; Pardon and pity ! I am hard beset.&quot;

There waited at the doorway of the king One grim and ghastly, shadowy, horrible, Bearing the likeness of a king himself, Erect as one who serveth not,—upon His head a crown, within his fleshless hands A sceptre,—monstrous, winged, intolerable. To him a stranger coming neath the trees, Which slid down flakes of light, now on his hair, Close-curled, now on his bared and brawny chest, Now on his flexile, vine-like veined limbs, With iron network of strong muscle thewed, And godlike brows and proud mouth unrelaxed.