Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A NUBIAN LION, by AMELIA WOODWARD TRUESDELL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A NUBIAN LION, by                    
First Line: Monarch dethroned, with eyes where smouldering fires
Last Line: With kings we yet may walk among the stars.
Subject(s): Animals; Cages; Lions; Nile (river); Wilderness


Monarch dethroned, with eyes where smouldering fires
Seem ever bursting into memory,
Whose brows are but captivity's despair,
What tragedy of other life has left
Such majesty upon thy wrinkled front?

Why plungest at thy cage? Dost see thy foes,
Princes who smote thy sires in Babylon
Or in Persepolis? Thou art avenged;
Thine ancestors have cast for centuries
Their moonlight silhouettes upon the floors
And peristyles of their dead palaces.

Thou criest from thy sleep; dost hear in dreams
The priestess maidens singing by the Nile?
Does their low chant drive thy dumb being mad
With memory of life in Philæ's groves?

Whose entity thus paces to and fro?
Does Alexander pant for worlds? Thy roar,
Is it some Cæsar's fury at duress?
In thy dun hide, does he of Marathon
Brood in thy sullen wrath? Thy whimpering whine?
Is Xerxes weeping still for Salamis?
Their peoples are as naught—while thou? Thy race
Is yet the jungle's prince; the desert's king.

But what is heritage to thee in chains?
And what to thee is aught save liberty
And the wild smell of hidden lairs, where calls
Thy lonely mate across the Nubian night?
Know this, thou prince of Pers or priest of Nile,
In bondage and revolt thou'rt not alone.
O fellow captive, rest! Perhaps for us,
For thee and me, may wait still other forms;
With kings we yet may walk among the stars.





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