WEARY, weary, desolate, Sand-swept, parched, and
cursed of fate; Burning, but how passionless! Barren,
bald, and pitiless!
Through all ages baleful moons
Glared upon thy whited dunes;
And malignant, wrathful
suns Fiercely drank thy streamless runs;
So that
Nature's only tune Is the blare of the simoon,
Piercing burnt unweeping skies With its awful monodies.
Not a flower lifts its head Where the emigrant lies
dead;
Not a living creature calls Where the Gila
Monster crawls, Hot and hideous as the sun, To the
dead man's skeleton;
But the desert and the dead,
And the hot hell overhead, And the blazing, seething air,
And the dread mirage are there. |