YOU're a milk-white Panther: I'm a Genius of the air. You're a Princess once enchanted; That is why you seem so fair. For a crime untold, unwritten, That was done an age ago, I have lost my wings, and wander In the wilderness below. In a dream too long indulged, In a Palace by the sea, You were changed to what you are By a muttered sorcery. Your name came on my lips When I first looked in your eyes: At my feet you fawned, you knew me In despite of all disguise. The black elephants of Delhi Are the wisest of their kind, And the libbards of Soumatra Are full of eyes behind: But they guessed not, they divined not, They believed me of the earth, When I walked among them, mourning For the region of my birth. Till I found you in the moonlight. Then at once I knew it all. You were sleeping in the sand here, But you wakened to my call. I knew why, in your slumber, You were moaning piteously: You heard a sound of harping From a Palace by the sea. Through the wilderness together We must wander everywhere, Till we find the magic berry That shall make us what we were. 'T is a berry sweet and bitter, I have heard; there is but one; On a tall tree, by a fountain, In the desert all alone. When at last 't is found and eaten, We shall both be what we were; You, a Princess of the water, I, a Genius of the air. See! the Occident is flaring Far behind us in the skies, And our shadows float before us. Night is coming forth. Arise! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AUTUMN by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON GHOSTS OF THE OLD YEAR by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON ON A MAGAZINE SONNET by RUSSELL HILLARD LOINES SUMTER [APRIL 12, 1861] by EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN ODE TO DUTY by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH THE BOOK OF THE LETTER, SELECTION by ABRAHAM ABULAFIA THE CHURCH OF BROU by MATTHEW ARNOLD |