Classic Poem

In dreams serene I saw before me rise,
Fertile and fragrant, by the lake-winds fanned,
Delicious vistas of the Holy Land,
Where Ephraim's vales in verdant grace expand
Their hallowed beauty to the ravished eyes.

Gerizim reared in air its lofty height,
A gleaming maze of olive boughs and flowers,
Guarding the crumbled mold of Roman towers;
While, in its majesty of barren bowers,
Grim Ebal brooded in the Syrian night.

Between each rugged base, in starry gloom,
My wandering gaze by mystic power was led
Unto a mound, with vines and wild buds spread,
The sanctuary of immortal dead,
The spot all-holy which is Joseph's tomb.

And as I wondered, in religious awe,
Before the dust of that great patriarch, dear
To Hebrew hearts, who, piously austere,
Bearded the sullen Pharaoh without fear,
Musing upon his blameless life, I saw.

A dolorous ghost, that, uttering low sighs,
Crept near the tomb, as if in timid quest,
A homeless spirit, tortured with unrest,
By some sublime fatality oppressed,
With haggard cheeks, with vague, imploring eyes.

Marveling and mute, I dared not then demand
Whence she had come, or how, but I could trace
All Egypt's beauty blooming in her face,
While, with a sudden weird and ghastly grace,
She clasped a mantle in one shadowy hand.

Its folds she wound about her like a shroud,
And tangled them amid her dusky hair,
Then paused and knelt in agonized despair
Before the sacred mound, and all the air
Was still, while in her grief she cried aloud:

" Oh Joseph! most beloved and chosen one!
Can not long centuries of tears assuage
Thy heartless rancor toward me? Can thy rage
Last longer than my misery? Oh sage,
Oh lover, prophet, what thing have I done.

" To feel, alas! thy everlasting scorn?
Must it eternal through the ages grow?
Hast thou no pity for my desperate woe,
When for a million eves I bend below
The potals of thy callous grave to mourn?

" Must I forever in the winter chill,
And sultry summer, answerless implore
Thy pardon for a wrong that is no more,
Alas! when I most ardently adore
Thy vanished beauty and thy memory still?

" Have no soft sounds of lamentations mine
The injury of the cruel past effaced?
Am I in thy pure soul for time disgraced?
Oh, man relentless, phantom sadly chaste,
Art thou in death than on earth more divine?

" See! thy fair mantle in my hand I hold,
A shred of thee, as sacred as thy kiss,
Far holier than the heart of Anubis,
And, though the joys of Paradise I miss,
Still have I clung to it as worlds grow old!

" Oh Joseph! though I suffer for thee here,
My pain is sweet, and all the pangs thereof!
What raptures could I gain in spheres above,
Greater than my sad, unrequited love,
That lives while stars are born and disappear?

" And yet, oh luminous promise of my soul,
If thou shouldst waken from thy tranquil sleep,
Which seraphim with holy vigils keep,
Reward my trust, unfalteringly deep,
And speak one word, I will have gained my goal!

" Recall the languorous and ecstatic days,
When first I feasted eyes upon thy charms!
How could I spurn, with virtuous alarms,
The sinewy splendor of thy robust arms,
Thy god-like brow, and thine alluring ways?

" Wast thou not fair and beautiful, while he,
Swart Potiphar, my husband and my lord,
Awed by the leaping terror of his sword
And jealous brows? Ah, love could ill afford
To spurn for him the excellence of thee!

" Blame for my sin, if sin it be, alone,
The curves symmetric of thy perfect limbs;
Blame the grave music of Hebraic hymns,
The memory of thy voice that nothing dims;
Blame my frail heart that could not be of stone.

" Blame the voluptuous murmur of the Nile,
The pomp and glitter of thy home, the palm
That shaded every revery, the calm
Of torrid star-thronged nights, the gentle balm
Of dreamy wines, but, above all, thy smile!

" Ah, how could I of fervent flesh resist
The tingling festivals of mad desire
That held sweet riot in me, with a fire
That scorned Osiris and the mage's ire,
When, bold, I languished for thy lips unkissed?

" Greater to me than Phthas' gemmed glories were
The nubile, supple graces of thy form!
Could I dispel swift hankerings that swarm,
When nerves are palpitant, and blood is warm?
Could I gaze on thy wonder and not err?

" Oh Joseph! hear me ere I hasten hence!
The drowsy night is failing in the west;
Quell the sad torment of my harrowed breast,
If thou hast mercy; I have all confessed;
Grand child of God, grant me my recompense! "

*****

Then in the vague, gray gloaming I could see
The poor, unpardoned ghost caress the mound,
Where envied pity she had never found,
Prostrate and humble on the leafy ground,
Clutching the mantle in dumb agony!

And when her lamentations seemed to cease,
To this distracted spirit, love-denied,
A dull, sepulchral voice at last replied,
And from the crypt's deep gloom in anger cried:
" Away, thou specter harlot, give me peace! "