Page:Poems of Emma Lazarus vol 2.djvu/254

Say, shall we sing of sadness, joy or hope ?
Or bathe in blood the serried, steel-clad ranks ?
See loTers mount the ladder's silken rope ?
Or fleck the wind with coursers' foaming flanks ?
Or shall we tell whose hand the lamps above,
In the celestial mansions, year by year.
Kindles with sacred oil of life and love ?
With Tarquin shall we cry, " Come, night is here ! "
Or shall we dive for pearls beneath the seas,
Or find the wild goats by the alpine trees ?
Bid melancholy gaze upon the skies ?
Follow the huntsman on the upland lawns ?
The roe uplifts her tearful, suppliant eyes,
Her heath awaits her, and her suckling fawns ;
He stoops, he slaughters her, he flings her heart
Still warm amidst his panting hounds apart.
Or shall we paint a maid with vermeil cheek,
Who, with her page behind, to vespers fares,
Beside her mother, dreamy-eyed and meek,
And on her half-oped lips forgets her prayers,
Trembles midst echoing columns, hearkening
To hear her bold knight's clanging spurs out-ring.
Or shall we bid the heroes of old France
Scale full equipped the battlemented wall.
And So revive the simple-strained romance
Their fame inspired our troubadours withal ?
Or shall we clothe soft elegies in white ?
Or bid the man of Waterloo recite