DAUGHTER OF EGYPT

by: Bayard Taylor (1825-1878)

      AUGHTER of Egypt, veil thine eyes!
      I cannot bear their fire;
      Nor will I touch with sacrifice
      Those altars of desire.
      For they are flames that shun the day,
      And their unholy light
      Is fed from natures gone astray
      In passion and in night.
       
      The stars of Beauty and of Sin,
      They burn amid the dark,
      Like beacons that to ruin win
      The fascinated bark.
      Then veil their glow, lest I forswear
      The hopes thou canst not crown,
      And in the black waves of thy hair
      My struggling manhood drown!

"Daughter of Egypt" is reprinted from The Little Book of American Poets: 1787-1900. Ed. Jessie B. Rittenhouse. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1915.

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