My Lattice and Other Poems

by Frederick George Scott

 

SOLOMON

 
A DOUBLE line of columns, white as snow,
    And vaulted with mosaics rich in flowers,
    Makes square this cypress grove where fountain showers
From golden basins cool the grass below;
While from that archway strains of music flow,
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    And laughings of fair girls beguile the hours.
    But brooding, like one held by evil powers,
The great King heeds not, pacing sad and slow.

His heart hath drained earth’s pleasures to the lees,
    Hath quivered with life’s finest ecstasies;
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        Yet now some power reveals as in a glass
The soul’s unrest and death’s dark mysteries,
    And down the courts the scared slaves watch him pass,
        Reiterating, “Omnia Vanitas!”