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The Plains of Arizona
(From The Ship in the Desert)
THOU white and dried-up sea! so old! | |
| So strewn with wealth, so sown with gold! | |
| Yes, thou art old and hoary white | |
| With time, and ruin of all things; | |
| And on thy lonesome borders night | 5 |
| Sits brooding o’er with drooping wings. | |
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| The wind that tossed thy waves and blew | |
| Across thy breast the flowing sail, | |
| And cheered the hearts of cheering crew | |
| From further seas, no more prevail. | 10 |
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| Thy white-walled cities all lie prone, | |
| With but a pyramid, a stone, | |
| Set head and foot in sands to tell | |
| The tired stranger where they fell. | |
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| The patient ox that bended low | 15 |
| His neck, and drew slow up and down | |
| Thy thousand freights through rock-built town, | |
| Is now the free-born buffalo. | |
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| No longer of the timid fold, | |
| The mountain sheep leaps free and bold | 20 |
| His high-built summit, and looks down | |
| From battlements of buried town. | |
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| Thine ancient steeds know not the rein, | |
| They lord the land, they come, they go | |
| At will; they laugh at man, they blow | 25 |
| A cloud of black steeds on the plain. | |
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| Thy monuments lie buried now, | |
| The ashes whiten on thy brow, | |
| The winds, the waves have drawn away, | |
| The very wild man dreads to stay. | 30 |
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| Oh! thou art very old. I lay, | |
| Made dumb with awe and wonderment, | |
| Beneath a palm within my tent, | |
| With idle and discouraged hands, | |
| Not many days agone, on sands | 35 |
| Of awful, silent Africa. | |
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| Long gazing on her mighty shades, | |
| I did recall a semblance there | |
| Of thee. I mused where story fades | |
| From her dark brow and found her fair. | 40 |
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| And yet my dried-up desert sea | |
| Was populous with blowing sail. | |
| And set with city, white-walled town, | |
| All manned with armies bright with mail, | |
| Ere yet that awful Sphinx sat down | 45 |
| To gaze into eternity, | |
| Or Egypt knew her natal hour, | |
| Or Africa had name or power. | |
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