LION AND LIONESS

by: Edwin Markham (1852-1940)

NE night we were together, you and I,

And had unsown Assyria for a lair,

Before the walls of Babylon rose in air.

How languid hills were heaped along the sky,

And white bones marked the wells of alkali,

When suddenly down the lion-path a sound . . .

The wild man-odor . . . then a crouch, a bound,

And the frail Thing fell quivering with a cry!

 

Your yellow eyes burned beautiful with light:

The dead man lying there quieted and white:

I roared my triumph over the desert wide,

Then stretched out, glad for the sands and satisfied;

And through the long, star-stilled Assyrian night,

I felt your body breathing by my side.

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