_The Cactus Land_

Land of strange, unearthly beauty, Tawny Desert, over me Thou hast cast the deep enchantment Of some subtile sorcery!

These thine endless barren reaches Where no fruitful harvests grow, Unto some bring nameless heartache; But to me thou dost not so!

Here, where all the air seems newly From the springs of life distilled, Every breath is like a beaker With rare, sparkling rapture filled!

And my heart exults and glories In the strange, compelling power Of enchanting, changeful color, That is thy supremest dower.

Joy to me thine ever cloudless Sky of purest turquoise hue, And thy rosy mountain ranges Wrapped in pale, translucent blue.

Beautiful the rainbow ether Shifting, shimmering evermore, In diaphanous, dazzling splendors Over all thy boundless floor,

Where the low-boughed silver sage-bush Softly tufts the tawny land, And the tropic Spanish bayonet Clusters tall on every hand.

While for leagues and leagues the cactus, Child of sun and sand and bare Rainless regions, lifts its columns Through the rare, transparent air.

Wild and splendid in thy freedom, Unsubdued as is the sea, From the first, O lordly Desert, Thou hast drawn my heart to thee!

Desolate thou art, and silent, Barren both of fruit and flower; Yet I love thine arid grandeur That defies man’s utmost power!

THE LAST SURVIVOR FROM THE LIFE-BOAT

Beneath his pillow, hid away From careless sight, the nurses say, And safe from any stranger’s view, As miser might some treasure rare, So does he guard, with jealous care, A baby’s shoe.

And evermore by day and night, With burning eyeballs fever-bright, This wan survivor of the sea Scans each blank, closing wall in turn, In dim endeavor to discern If sail there be.

And then the weary sigh that slips Suspiring from those parching lips No heart may hear nor bleed therefor! As, with hot tears that fall like rain, He soothes a dying baby’s pain And o’er and o’er

Croons snatches of soft lullabies To empty arms held cradle-wise. —O human heart-break, love and grief! God pity him in his distress, Ev’n as the sea was pitiless Beyond belief!

God comfort, as with straining breath, Unheeding either life or death, Yet still with faint unwitting smile, His fingers fondly seek and fold The little sea-stained shoe, and hold And stroke the while.