How many weary centuries has it been How many strange vicissitudes has seen, Perhaps the camels of the Ishmaelite When into Egypt from the patriarch's sight Perhaps the feet of Moses, burnt and bare, Or Pharaoh's flashing wheels into the air Or Mary, with the Christ of Nazareth Whose pilgrimage of hope and love and faith Or anchorites beneath Engaddi's palms And singing slow their old Armenian psalms Or caravans, that from Bassora's gate Or Mecca's pilgrims, confident of Fate, These have passed over it, or may have passed! Now in this crystal tower Imprisoned by some curious hand at last, It counts the passing hour. SAND OF THE DESERT. And as I gaze, these narrow walls expand;Before my dreamy eye Stretches the desert with its shifting sand, Its unimpeded sky. And borne aloft by the sustaining blast, And onward, and across the setting sun, The column and its broader shadow run, The vision vanishes! These walls again Shut out the hot, immeasurable plain; And above, in the light Of the star-lit night, Swift birds of passage wing their flight I hear the beat Of their pinions fleet, As from the land of snow and sleet They seek a southern lea. I hear the cry Of their voices high Falling dreamily through the sky, But their forms I cannot see. O, say not so! Those sounds that flow In murmurs of delight and woe Come not from wings of birds. They are the throngs Of the poet's songs, Murmurs of pleasures, and pains, and wrongs, The sound of winged words. This is the cry Of souls, that high On toiling, beating pinions fly, Seeking a warmer clime. From their distant flight Through realms of light It falls into our world of night, With the murmuring sound of rhyme. |