Where is that boy, that Heaven-born Bryan, That Homer Bryan, who sang from the West? Gone to join the shadows with Altgeld the Eagle, Where the kings and the slaves and the troubadours rest. Written at the Guanella Ranch, Empire, Colorado, August, 1919. RAMESES II Would that the brave Rameses, King of Time Were throned in your souls, to raise for you Vast immemorial dreams dark Egypt knew, Filling these barren days with Mystery, With Life and Death, and Immortality, The Devouring Ages, the all-consuming Sun: God keep us brooding on eternal things, God make us wizard-kings. MOSES Yet let us raise that Egypt-nurtured prince, Son of a Hebrew, with the dauntless scorn And hate for bleating gods Egyptian-born, Showing with signs to stubborn Mizraim “God is one God, the God of Abraham,” He who in the beginning made the Sun. God send us Moses from his hidden grave, God make us meek and brave. A RHYME FOR ALL ZIONISTS _The Eyes of Queen Esther, and How they Conquered King Ahasuerus_ “Esther had not showed her people nor her kindred.” I He harried lions up the peaks. In blood and moss and snow they died. He wore a cloak of lions’ manes To satisfy his curious pride. Men saw it, trimmed with emerald bands, Flash on the crested battle-tide. Where Bagdad stands, he hunted kings, Burned them alive, his soul to cool. Yet in his veins god Ormadz wrought To make a just man of a fool. He spoke the rigid truth, and rode, And drew the bow, by Persian rule. II Ahasuerus in his prime Was gracious and voluptuous. He saw a pale face turn to him, A gleam of Heaven’s righteousness: A girl with hair of David’s gold And Rachel’s face of loveliness. He dropped his sword, he bowed his head. She led his steps to courtesy. He took her for his white north star: A wedding of true majesty. Oh, what a war for gentleness Was in her bridal fantasy! Why did he fall by candlelight And press his bull-heart to her feet? He found them as the mountain-snow Where lions died. Her hands were sweet As ice upon a blood-burnt mouth, As mead to reapers in the wheat. The little nation in her soul Bloomed in her girl’s prophetic face. She named it not, and yet he felt One challenge: her eternal race. This was the mystery of her step, Her trembling body’s sacred grace. He stood, a priest, a Nazarite, A rabbi reading by a tomb. The hardy raider saw and feared Her white knees in the palace gloom, Her pouting breasts and locks well combed Within the humming, reeling room. Her name was _Meditation_ there: Fair opposite of bullock’s brawn. I sing her eyes that conquered him. He bent before his little fawn, Her dewy fern, her bitter weed, Her secret forest’s floor and lawn.