Page:Selections from the American poets (IA selectamerpoet00bryarich).pdf/139

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Fitz-Greene Halek.
135
Is strength a monarch's merit? (like a whaler's) Thou art as tall, as sinewy, and as strongAs earth's first kings—the Argo's gallant sailors, Heroes in history, and gods in song.
Is eloquence? Her spell is thine that reaches The heart, and makes the wisest head its sport;And there's one rare, strange virtue in thy speeches, The secret of their mastery—they are short.
Is beauty! Thine has with thy youth departed, But the love-legends of thy manhood's years,And she who perish'd, young and broken-hearted, Are—but I rhyme for smiles, and not for tears.
The monarch mind—the mystery of commanding, The godlike power, the art Napoleon,Of winning, fettering, moulding, wielding, banding The hearts of millions till they move as one;
Thou hast it. At thy bidding men have crowded The road to death as to a festival; And minstrel minds, without a blush, have shrouded With banner-folds of glory their dark pall.
Who will believe—not I—for in deceiving Lies the dear charm of life's delightful dream;I cannot spare the luxury of believing That all things beautiful are what they seem.
Who will believe that, with a smile whose blessing Would, like the patriarch's, sooth a dying hour;With voice as low, as gentle, and caressing As e'er won maiden's lip in moonlight bower;
With look, like patient Job's, eschewing evil; With motions graceful as a bird's in air;Thou art, in sober truth, the veriest devil That e'er clinched fingers in a captive's hair?
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