Classic Poem

Flamelike upon the mountain's cragged face
Glowed the Great Carbuncle; beneath the noon
A rival to the sun's eye, and when night
Unfolded all the spangle of its stars,
A crimson lure that leaped from ledge to ledge,
Glinted like dancing marsh-fires through the trees,
Climbed the sheer heights, and hung above the crest
A beckoning splendor.

To the vale below
At shut of summer twilight came the Man,
And raised amazed eyes, for while the shades
Empurpled all the valley, far o'erhead
Flamelike upon the mountain's cragged face
Glowed the Great Carbuncle, and burned and shed
A double sunset. Through his midnight dreams
Pulsed the irradiant vision, as a forge
Pulses what time the metal's molten mass
Gushes from out its maw. And when the dawn
Flowered, and he saw his dream was not a dream,
Haste hung upon his footsteps while he fared
Up still and up, like many another led
By the false gleam of avarice. In his brain
Lights leaped and throbbed, — rich imageries of power
Like those that swept the thought of Tamerlane

And Alexander, — the broad world his fee
Could he but grasp the jewel. So he came,
As none had come in all those elder days,
Though nameless ones had striven madly, where
Flamelike upon the mountain's cragged face
Glowed the Great Carbuncle.

His trembling arms
Outyearned to clasp the cincture of the stone,
When, like a breathing thing, it loosed and leaped
From the bedrock, cleft, as the lightning cleaves,
A deep-girthed pine bole, then the awaiting lake
Embosomed it forever, while the Man
Stared, fraught with frenzy, then too poised and leaped.

Now in the wan late watches of the moon
Mysterious ripples as of ruby run
Across the hill-hid waters, nor are lost
Until they mingle with the rose of morn.