Edgar Allan Poe: Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

42. TAMERLANE (continued)

I was ambitious - have you known
        The passion, father? You have not:
A cottager, I mark'd a throne
Of half the world as all my own,
        And murmur'd at such lowly lot -
But, just like any other dream,
        Upon the vapour of the dew
My own had past, did not the beam
        Of beauty which did while it thro'
The minute - the hour - the day - oppress
My mind with double loveliness.

We walk'd together on the crown
Of a high mountain which look'd down
Afar from its proud natural towers
    Of rock and forest, on the hills -
The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers
    And shouting with a thousand rills.

I spoke to her of power and pride,
    But mystically - in such guise
That she might deem it nought beside
    The moment's converse; in her eyes
I read, perhaps too carelessly -
    A mingled feeling with my own -
The flush on her bright cheek, to me
    Seem'd to become a queenly throne
Too well that I should let it be
    Light in the wilderness alone.

I wrapp'd myself in grandeur then,
    And donn'd a visionary crown --
        Yet it was not that Fantasy
        Had thrown her mantle over me -
But that, among the rabble - men,
        Lion ambition is chain'd down -
And crouches to a keeper's hand -
Not so in deserts where the grand
The wild - the terrible conspire
With their own breath to fan his fire.

Look 'round thee now on Samarcand! -
    Is not she queen of Earth? her pride
Above all cities? in her hand
    Their destinies? in all beside
Of glory which the world hath known
Stands she not nobly and alone?
Falling - her veriest stepping-stone
Shall form the pedestal of a throne -
And who her sovereign? Timour - he
    Whom the astonished people saw
Striding o'er empires haughtily
    A diadem'd outlaw -