Bird Parliament · 10 of 20

The Phoenix

Then on a sudden swoop’d The Phoenix down As though he wore as well as gave The Crown: And cried—‘I care not, I, to wait on Kings, Whose crowns are but the Shadow of my Wings!’

‘Aye,’ was the Answer—‘And, pray, how has sped, On which it lighted, many a mortal Head?’

A certain Sultan dying, his Vizier In Dream beheld him, and in mortal Fear Began—‘O mighty Shah of Shahs! Thrice-blest’— But loud the Vision shriek’d and struck its Breast, And ‘Stab me not with empty Title!’ cried— ‘One only Shah there is, and none beside, Who from his Throne above for certain Ends Awhile some Spangle of his Glory lends To Men on Earth; but calling in again Exacts a strict account of every Grain. Sultan I lived, and held the World in scorn: O better had I glean’d the Field of Corn! O better had I been a Beggar born, And for my Throne and Crown, down in the Dust My living Head had laid where Dead I must! O wither’d, wither’d, wither’d, be the Wing Whose overcasting Shadow made me King!’