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.