The Poems of Emma Lazarus, Volume 1

THE CRANES OF IBYCUS.

     There was a man who watched the river flow
     Past the huge town, one gray November day.
     Round him in narrow high-piled streets at play
     The boys made merry as they saw him go,
     Murmuring half-loud, with eyes upon the stream,
     The immortal screed he held within his hand.
     For he was walking in an April land
     With Faust and Helen.  Shadowy as a dream
     Was the prose-world, the river and the town.
     Wild joy possessed him; through enchanted skies
     He saw the cranes of Ibycus swoop down.
     He closed the page, he lifted up his eyes,
     Lo—a black line of birds in wavering thread
     Bore him the greetings of the deathless dead!