Classic Poem

In far-off China I heard it,
As we paused by a city of the desert,
Whose hosts of sand, blown ever by the wind,
Climbed high over crenelated battlements
That had beaten off Genghis Khan.
And it fell upon the air there softly,
A low eerie Orient tinkle …
And Inever shall know from whence it came,
From what strange thing with what strange name:
But even as a dewdrop catches the sky
It seemed to have caught the vast numb cry
Of the ancient sorrow of China.
It seemed to have caught, in a single tone,
A sorrow, a beauty, an alien moan
That never will let my heart alone
Till the sands of time sweep over it.
In far-off China I heard it,
Where the desert winds go by!