THE GOLDEN PAST
by: George Sterling (1869-1926)
I
- ITHIN the
stillness of the crypt he lay--
- The vanquished tyrant, quivering and stark,
- Shackled, alone with anguish and the dark,
- And conscious that the immolating day
- Swept on him as a tiger on its prey,
- To quench with agonies the vital spark,
- When cruel eyes should gloat and laughters mark
- The final shames of the tormented clay.
-
- Astounded by atrocities of pain,
- He broke the offended silence with a moan--
- This offal of the rack and glowing brand--
- While, as he strove at the relentless chain
- And shuddered, prostrate, on the salted stone,
- A dungeon-rat fed on his mangled hand.
-
- II
-
- But they, his conqueror and faithless queen,
- Beneath the midnight moon lay arrogant,
- Nor saw her beams on kingly marble slant,--
- On jasmine and the crowding roses' sheen,
- Nor heard the fingers of the harper glean
- Harvests of sound, nor heard the ceaseless chant
- Of voices to their godhood consonant.
- For them the naked dancer swayed unseen.
-
- For them there stood no past, nor time to be,
- For whom all rapture was a tideless sea
- Wherein they dwelt beyond all sound and sight,
- Without a star to touch them with its ray
- Nor pulse of waves to reach them where they lay,
- Welded in dumb convulsions of delight.
"The Golden Past" is reprinted
from Poetica Erotica. Ed. T.R. Smith. New York: Crown
Publishers, 1921. |
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