The Demon of the Desert

With the brief gladness of the Palms, that tower and sway o’er seething plain, Fraught with the thoughts of rustling shade, and welling spring, and rushing rain;

With the short solace of the ridge, by gentle zephyrs played upon, Whose breezy head and bosky side front seas of cooly celadon;—

’Tis theirs to pass with joy and hope, whose souls shall ever thrill and fill Dreams of the Birthplace and the Tomb, visions of Allah’s Holy Hill.*

* Arafât, near Mecca.

But we? Another shift of scene, another pang to rack the heart; Why meet we on the bridge of Time to ’change one greeting and to part?

We meet to part; yet asks my sprite, Part we to meet? Ah! is it so? Man’s fancy-made Omniscience knows, who made Omniscience nought can know.

Why must we meet, why must we part, why must we bear this yoke of MUST, Without our leave or askt or given, by tyrant Fate on victim thrust?

That Eve so gay, so bright, so glad, this Morn so dim, and sad, and grey; Strange that life’s Registrar should write this day a day, that day a day!

Mine eyes, my brain, my heart, are sad,— sad is the very core of me; All wearies, changes, passes, ends; alas! the Birthday’s injury!

Friends of my youth, a last adieu! haply some day we meet again; Yet ne’er the self-same men shall meet; the years shall make us other men:

The light of morn has grown to noon, has paled with eve, and now farewell! Go, vanish from my Life as dies the tinkling of the Camel’s bell.