Classic Poem

Living he loathed me with a deadly hate,
And dying willed that I should build his tomb;
And therefore in this grave, as in the womb,
Beneath the tyrannous and brooding weight
Of marble, Kingship impotently great,
Pride in the stony eyes, and in his hand
The awe-less sceptre of his lost command,
My thought, a child unborn, shall lie and wait,
And live and grow unknown, undreamt of, dumb,
Through the long silence of the shameful years,
Until the destined day at last shall come,
And he, the child begot in shame and tears,
Shall leap full-armed from out the tyrant's grave
To draw the sword and strike — avenge and save.