| |
| A HANDFUL of red sand, from the hot clime | |
| Of Arab deserts brought, | |
| Within this glass becomes the spy of Time, | |
| The minister of Thought. | |
| |
| How many weary centuries has it been | 5 |
| About those deserts blown! | |
| How many strange vicissitudes has seen, | |
| How many histories known! | |
| |
| Perhaps the camels of the Ishmaelite | |
| Trampled and passed it o’er, | 10 |
| When into Egypt from the patriarch’s sight | |
| His favorite son they bore. | |
| |
| Perhaps the feet of Moses, burnt and bare, | |
| Crushed it beneath their tread, | |
| Or Pharaoh’s flashing wheels into the air | 15 |
| Scattered it as they sped; | |
| |
| Or Mary, with the Christ of Nazareth | |
| Held close in her caress, | |
| Whose pilgrimage of hope and love and faith | |
| Illumed the wilderness; | 20 |
| |
| Or anchorites beneath Engaddi’s palms | |
| Pacing the Dead Sea beach, | |
| And singing slow their old Armenian psalms | |
| In half-articulate speech; | |
| |
| Or caravans, that from Bassora’s gate | 25 |
| With westward steps depart; | |
| Or Mecca’s pilgrims, confident of Fate, | |
| And resolute in heart! | |
| |
| These have passed over it, or may have passed! | |
| Now in this crystal tower | 30 |
| Imprisoned by some curious hand at last, | |
| It counts the passing hour. | |
| |
| And as I gaze, these narrow walls expand;— | |
| Before my dreamy eye | |
| Stretches the desert with its shifting sand, | 35 |
| Its unimpeded sky. | |
| |
| And borne aloft by the sustaining blast, | |
| This little golden thread | |
| Dilates into a column high and vast, | |
| A form of fear and dread. | 40 |
| |
| And onward, and across the setting sun, | |
| Across the boundless plain, | |
| The column and its broader shadow run, | |
| Till thought pursues in vain. | |
| |
| The vision vanishes! These walls again | 45 |
| Shut out the lurid sun, | |
| Shut out the hot, immeasurable plain; | |
| The half-hour’s sand is run! | |
| |
