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(From The Secret Way)
OMARTES, king of the wide plains which, north | |
| Of Tanais, pasture steeds for Scythian Mars, | |
| Forsook the simple ways | |
| And nomad tents of his unconquered fathers; | |
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| And in the fashion of the neighboring Medes, | 5 |
| Built a great city girt with moat and wall, | |
| And in the midst thereof | |
| A regal palace dwarfing piles in Susa, | |
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| With vast foundations rooted into earth, | |
| And crested summits soaring into heaven, | 10 |
| And gates of triple brass, | |
| Siege-proof as portals wielded by the Cyclops. | |
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| One day Omartes, in his pride of heart, | |
| Led his high priest, Telentias, through his halls, | |
| And chilled by frigid looks, | 15 |
| When counting on warm praise, asked, “What is wanting? | |
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| “Where is beheld the palace of a king, | |
| So stored with all that doth a king beseem; | |
| The woofs of Phrygian looms, | |
| The gold of Colchis, and the pearls of Ormus, | 20 |
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| “Couches of ivory sent from farthest Ind, | |
| Sidonian crystal, and Corinthian bronze, | |
| Egypt’s vast symbol gods, | |
| And those imagined unto men by Hellas; | |
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| “Stored not in tents that tremble to a gale, | 25 |
| But chambers firm-based as the Pyramids, | |
| And breaking into spray | |
| The surge of Time as Gades breaks the ocean?” | |
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| “Nor thou nor I the worth of these things now | |
| Can judge; we stand too near them,” said the sage. | 30 |
| “None till they reach the tomb | |
| Scan with just eye the treasures of the palace. | |
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| “But for thy building,—as we speak, I feel | |
| Through all the crannies pierce an icy wind | |
| More bitter than the blasts | 35 |
| Which howled without the tents of thy rude fathers. | |
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| “Thou hast forgot to bid thy masons close | |
| The chinks of stone against Calamity.” | |
| The sage inclined his brow, | |
| Shivered, and, parting, round him wrapt his mantle. | 40 |
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