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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POEMS BY BAYARD TAYLOR |
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