GOLDEN-ROD.
O’er the dusty roadside bending
With its wondrous weight of gold,
Can it be the rod enchanted
Midas used in days of old?
Hush! perchance it is a princess
In the sunlight nodding there,
Spell-bound by the wicked fairy,—
Sleepy little Golden-Hair!
Nay, it is Belshazzar’s banquet,
Where the drowsy monarch sups
With his swarm of courtiers, drinking
From the sacred, golden cups.
See, I pluck his tiny kingdom—
Long ago it was decreed—
And divide it, dear, between us,
You the Persian, I the Mede.