A tall Colossus, bronze and gold,
As if that flame-lit form were he
Who once bestrode the Rhodian sea,
And ruled the watery world of old:
As if the lost Colossus stood
Above that burning sea of wood.
And she, that shapely form upheld,
Held high, as if to touch the sky,
What airy shape, how shapely high,—
A goddess of the seas of eld!
Her hand upheld, her high right hand,
As if she would forget the land;
As if to gather stars, and heap
The stars like torches there to light
Her Hero’s path across the deep
To some far isle that fearful night.
It was as if Colossus came,
Came proudly reaching from the flame
Above the sea in sheen of gold,
His sea-bride leaping from his hold;
The lost Colossus, and his bride
In bronze perfection at his side:
As if the lost Colossus came
Companioned from the past, his bride
With torch all faithful at his side:
With star-tipped torch that reached and rolled
Through cloud-built corridors of gold:
His bride, austere and stern and grand,—
Bartholdi’s goddess by the sea,
Far lifting, lighting Liberty
From prison seas to Freedom’s land.
XLI.
The flame! the envious flame, it leapt
Enraged to see such majesty,
Such scorn of death; such kingly scorn.
Then like some lightning-riven tree
They sank down in that flame—and slept
And all was hushed above that steep
So still, that they might sleep and sleep;
As still as when a day is born.
At last! from out the embers leapt
Two shafts of light above the night,—
Two wings of flame that lifting swept
In steady, calm, and upward flight;
Two wings of flame against the white
Far-lifting, tranquil, snowy cone;
Two wings of love, two wings of light,
Far, far above that troubled night,
As mounting, mounting to God’s throne.
XLII.
And all night long that upward light
Lit up the sea-cow’s bed below:
The far sea-cows still calling so
It seemed as they must call all night.
All night! there was no night. Nay, nay,
There was no night. The night that lay
Between that awful eve and day,—
That nameless night was burned away.