Classic Poem

While yet upon his couch our father lay,
Sick unto death, my brothers, with one mind,
Plotted abrupt destruction to my life.
I did not tell the king, because I feared
To lessen by one heat the throbbing of his heart.
Beside his couch I knelt, and bowed my head--
I, his first-born, whom all the people loved.
His hot, weak hand he laid upon my hair,
And blessed me with his blessing, then said on:
"Thou hast beheld in Spring the dark green blade
That stabs up through the unresisting earth;
At last the Summer crowns it with a flower.
So thou, when I am passed away, and gone to dust,
Shalt wear a crown, but grander than the shrubs--
The symbol of a kingdom, on thy brow.
But take thee now this lesson to thy heart,
And from the grass learn wisdom; wear thy crown
As meekly, and as void of all display,
As doth the shrub half hidden under leaves."
So he bent down with pain, and kissed my cheek,
As though, having issued a great law, he
Had set his seal upon it--the king's seal.

I cared not for the crown, save as a means
To give my soul a higher and a nobler life.
This my old tutor taught me--a strange man he,
With careless garb, and heavy hairy brows
Bridged over eyes that shone like furnace fire.
My will was lost in his. I grew like him.
I only cared to study and to dream.
And he it was who, standing in the night
Between two pillars on the palace porch,
Saw my two brothers pass, and overheard
The hateful whisper of their black design.