XL.

He leaned above the ledge. Below He saw the black ship idly cruise,— A midge below, a mile below. His limbs were knotted as the thews

Of Hercules in his death-throe. The flame! the flame! the envious flame! She wound her arms, she wound her hair About his tall form, grand and bare,

To stay the fierce flame where it came. The black ship, like some moonlit wreck, Below along the burning sea Crept on and on all silently,

With silent pygmies on her deck. That midge-like ship far, far below; That mirage lifting from the hill! His flame-lit form began to grow,—

To grow and grow more grandly still. The ship so small, that form so tall, It grew to tower over all. A tall Colossus, bronze and gold,

As if that flame-lit form were he Who once bestrode the Rhodian sea, And ruled the watery world of old: As if the lost Colossus stood

Above that burning sea of wood. And she, that shapely form upheld, Held high, as if to touch the sky, What airy shape, how shapely high,—

A goddess of the seas of eld! Her hand upheld, her high right hand, As if she would forget the land; As if to gather stars, and heap

The stars like torches there to light Her Hero's path across the deep To some far isle that fearful night. It was as if Colossus came,

Came proudly reaching from the flame Above the sea in sheen of gold, His sea-bride leaping from his hold; The lost Colossus, and his bride

In bronze perfection at his side: As if the lost Colossus came Companioned from the past, his bride With torch all faithful at his side:

With star-tipped torch that reached and rolled Through cloud-built corridors of gold: His bride, austere and stern and grand,— Bartholdi's goddess by the sea,

Far lifting, lighting Liberty From prison seas to Freedom's land.