within her sight or call,
Along its banks or in its rushes tall,
All things are swooning in her leaden thrall—
Yea, prostrate is the salamander, prostrate is the crocodile.
And when at intervals her madness takes
A sudden turn,
A lull ensues and over Egypt breaks
The sacred urn
Of silence; while to quench her ancient thirst,
Which licked up every running stream and cursed
Every pool in cave or hollow nursed,
She plunges deep into the Nile and wonders why his waters burn.
And wonders too when in the winnowed sands,
Out of the gloom
Of labyrinthine avenues and lands
Of mystic bloom,
Arise the scents of blossoms that have known
Ten thousand Khamsins, and were often blown
To dust ere Menes sat upon his throne—
The blossoms of the teeming depths that float above the crest of doom.
Yea, and in the scattered dust of Ptah,
The flawless gleam
That once shone in the fane of Amen-Ra
Would fain redeem
From darknesses of immemorial time,
Which swallowed Thebes and Memphis in their prime,
The symbol of a heritage sublime,
And light again the sacred temple of the world’s eternal dream.
For though the earth itself should perish in
A flaming pyre,
And the wasting sun should like a spider spin
His cobwebs of fire,
Yet in the serdabs under Khamsin’s feet,
Around the blue of Osiris’s judgment seat,
Is this, which glyphs vermilion repeat:—
The sun of thought, of faith, of God shall never expire, shall never expire.
Albeit, in a mocking gust she veers
Into the gloom
That knows nor time nor sun, nor ever hears
The voice of Doom;
And, rifling the bejewelled gods, she drops
The veil of splendor from her howdah’s tops
And rocks in state from Karnak to Cheops
To tramp the dust of Pharoah’s pride, to smite the phantom of his tomb.
But mocking Khamsin, when her mood is spent,
Lulls the morn
In luscious breezes swooning with the scent
Of love reborn;—
Carressing winds! the tree senescent grows
In you as young as fruitful, and the rose
Upon the bistre lips of Ramesis blows,
Whispering of things immortal to the wandering seed and the reed forlorn.
She passes in phantasmagoric waves
Over shifting dunes,
Through shattered orbs, beyond the barren caves
Of mouldering moons,
While the antique youth the Sun, as young today
As when the cricket first essayed her lay,
Across the flood of Nilus makes his way,
And with him weaves for Egypt wondrous summer garlands and galloons.
And lo, the Khamsin of the world, in flames
Of crimson hue
And clouds of vitriolic dust, proclaims
The era new;
But through the storm a spirit wings his flight
Across the phosphorescent gulfs of night.
And this, upon the rising sun, doth write:—
God liveth, yea, God liveth still and man shall nothing rue.
Prayer in the Desert
O Lord of Bounties, melt thy heaven’s breath,
Which spreads its gold around the head of Death—
Which, while it smiles, devours all living things,
Giving to Desolation wondrous wings:
Lest in the waste Arabia’s star should wane,
A little rain, Allah, a little rain.
Thou Bountiful, thy Sun is weaving fast
The shroud of Earth now in the sand-storm cast;
Earth can not weep—the well of faith is run—
Its rivers and its desert sands are one:
O thou Bestower, once more sustain
Thy sun-crowned Daughter with a little rain.
Quiet this rising phantom-haunted sea
Of sands; the Faithful from its fury free;
Enchain the monsters of the dire simoom—
Let not the desert be thy children’s tomb.
Thou Merciful, assist us to attain
Our goal—a little rain, a little rain!
Arabia’s thousand wounds to thee appeal,
And with our lips its gaping wounds we seal;
Prostrate upon the sands we lift our hearts,
Pierced in thy presence by thy flaming darts.
Thy children, Allah, in the throes of pain,
Pray for a little rain, a little rain!
Water and Flowers
Here are flowers, O my Beloved,
Here are flowers;
Let us lay our hearts today
Among the flowers;
Let us not be led astray
By the mirage far away;
Here is verdure, and in verdure
Love embowers.
Here are springs, O my beloved,
Here are springs;
Let us rest and build a nest
Near the springs;
Let us cease our weary quest
For the mountains of the blest;
Here is water, and in water
Blessing sings.
The Song of Rain
Allah is merciful, Allah is kind,
His heart, in the tears of the earth, is enshrined;
He chains the desire
Of whirlwind and fire:—
The Drought, the Simoon and their forces entire,
In the fast spreading shades of his pity, suspire;—
It rains, it rains.
Allah is gracious, Allah is sweet,
The desert is flowering under his feet;
E’en the fires he fanned,
And the mountains they spanned,
And the caverns that groan under burdens of sand
Are dazed with the bounties that flow from his hand;—
It rains, it rains!
Allah ’s all-seeing, Allah is wise,
The palm from the stone to praise him shall rise;
The deer in the dale,
The plant in the shale,
The bird in the nest, and the gull in the gale
Are joyously chanting, Hail, Allah, hail!
It rains, it rains!
Allah is mighty, Allah is great,
His hands all things resuscitate;
He burns the shroud,
He shakes the cloud,
And the dead of the earth with new life are endowed—
The bones of the earth are joyous and proud;—
It rains, it rains!
The House of Night
Her sable robes the gloaming trails
From golden strand to purple height,
And softly, over the wealds and dales,
Into the vacant House of Night.
But lo, where first her footsteps mark
The sunset’s last extinguished pyre—
Above the hills—a saffron spark,
A gleam of unconjectured fire.
Between the foliaged zone and sky,
Where sentries of the forest stand,
It peeps and flits—a firefly;
It soars and glows—a firebrand.
A sacred flame from hemlock shades,
Rising like a mystic sign
Above the silence of the glades
Into the solitudes divine.
A sign perchance from those who pass
To those who follow in the gloom,
Dancing round a moulten mass
Above the grudging gulfs of doom.
A new-born world, though years untold
Have fed the forge that gave it breath,
Where Life still casts of beaten gold
Cressets for the shrine of Death.
A dying world, though like a gem
Of sapphire hues in nacre bright,
Dropt from the zone or
