To-day I had a vision of the thing
Which we call life—the sum of human life—
In person of an upright monster-man,
Decked in a foot-long robe of many hues,
Whose front was squares of yellow, red and green,
And blue and purple and the violet,
Whose back was sombre brown, but mostly black;
His large and bony feet strode heavily,
A-trampling, upon beings in his path,
On men and women and on little babes,
And crushed them in the dust without a pity,
Once in a while he lifted to his breast
Some one with fondling pleasure, and did bear

The favorite aloft, that all might see
His glory’s contrast to their misery;
But then at length, he tired of even such,
And cast them down into the common dust.
I looked upon his visage, strangest this,
A blending of the human and the beast:—
But then the vision vanished, and I heard
A cry and circling of the Pheonix bird.