Golden Atlantis

By RICHARD BUTLER GLAENZER

ATLANTIS is no fable. I have heard
 The murmur of its bells on "olden nights.
And in the wailing of the tropic bird
 The memory of ancient homing flights
 To a tall island where the humblest rights—
Those of a bird as well as man—were held
 Sacred since inborn, safe from jealous spites.
Atlantis was a land where freedom dwelled.

They were not truly sages who averred
 That the great eastern Atlantean bights
Lav close to Egypt, and that from them purred
 The sphinx-prowed galleys, spreading dark delights
 Along the Nile, creating appetites
Brazen as Moloch's. Could the golden-belled
 Have Chimed with slavers of Israelites?
Atlantis was a land where freedom dwelled.

This I know best—down in my heart has stirred,
 In answer to the Pool of Malachites,
Still bubbling fathoms deep, the living word-
 A word so healing that it cured all blights
 A word so kindly that it checked all slights,
word from which all loving-kindness welled.
 The word that follows, in the tongue of sprites:
"Atlantis was a land where freedom dwelled!"

ENVOI

Prince of the world, Maker of blacks and whites,
 Of red men, yellow, man however spelled,
Giver whose hand, disdained as empty, smites,
 Atlantis was, a land where freedom dwelled!