Classic Poem

Who having known through night a great star falling
With half the host of heaven in its wake,
And o'er chaotic seas a dread voice calling,
And a new purple dawn of presage break,

Can hope to conquer thee, proud Son of Morning,
Arrayed in mighty lusts of heart and eyes,
With blood-red rubies set for thine adorning
And sorceries wherein men's souls grow wise?

Who shall withstand the onslaught of thy chariot,
Who ride to battle with thy gorgeous kings?
Dost thou not count the silver to Iscariot,
And Tyrian scarlet and the marvellous rings?

But ivory limbs and the flung festal roses,
The maddening music and the Chian wine,
Are overpast when one glad heart discloses
A pride more strange and terrible than thine!

That looked unsatisfied upon thy splendour,
And turned, all shaken with his love, away
To one dear face that holds him true and tender
Until the trumpets of the Judgment Day.

A pride that binds him till the last fierce ember
Shall fade from pride's tall roaring pyre in hell;
The gentleness and grace he shall remember,
The flower she gave, the love that she did tell.