A Caravan from China Comes

A CARAVAN from China comes;

For miles it sweetens all the air

With fragrant silks and dreaming gums,

Attar and myrrh—

A caravan from China comes.

O merchant, tell me what you bring,

With music sweet of camel bells;

How long have you been travelling

With these sweet smells?

O merchant, tell me what you bring.

A lovely lady is my freight,

A lock escaped of her long hair,—

That is this perfume delicate

That fills the air—

A lovely lady is my freight.

Her face is from another land,

I think she is no mortal maid,—

Her beauty, like some ghostly hand,

Makes me afraid;

Her face is from another land.

The little moon my cargo is,

About her neck the Pleiades

Clasp hands and sing; Hafiz, ’t is this

Perfumes the breeze—

The little moon my cargo is.