ON RE-READING "THE SICK KING IN BOKHARA", a poem

AS one grows weary dragging at the chain
Of circumstance which, unrelentingly,
Binds him to futile, joyless drudgery,
Far from the skyey paths youth thought to gain;
Though mocked by hope and teased by self-disdain,
Forgets his griefs in wingéd sympathy
When one more blest and worthier to be free
Triumphant rises from earth's sordid plain;
So, to this fragrant oriental story—
Bright, in the midst of old-world wretchedness,
With love's benignant and eternal glory—
We turn who fevered and athirst have dwelt
In desert places and with tears confess
How deeply he who wrote has thought for man—and felt.

Germantown, Penn., June, 1886.

"On Re-reading 'The Sick King in Bokhara'" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Literary World (26 June 1886).