Classic Poem

“Come and I shall show thee the dead of the desert”.

'Tis no herd of lions and whelps that covers the eye of the plain,
Nor the glory of Bashan, brave oaks, that have crashed to their fall, mighty fall.
By the side of their scorching black tents lie giants stretched out in the sun.
They crouch on the cold desert sands, lionesses are crouching secure;
The sand sinks away 'neath the place where the bodies and bulk of bone lie.
The mighty are clinging to earth, deep in slumber; their weapons are by,
The guiver and scabbard on belt, and their javelins stuck in the sand.
Heavy with locks are their heads, with great coils they have drooped to the earth;
The hair of those locks is drawn long, like to the lion's shaggy mane.
Their faces are tanned with gaunt strength but their eyes are as tarnished as brass,
Targe for the sun's bright arrows and sport for the strong hot wind.
Hard are their foreheads and daring faced to the heavens and staring.
Fear dwells in those brows and a devil lurks in the cave of each eye,
The rings of their beards are tangled to mazes of serpent strife.
Fashioned or moulded of flint they rear their breasts forward sublime,
Projecting like anvils of iron, set for the hammer to strike,
As if they were hardened for ever with blows of the hammer of time,
Or by wielding of fathomless power, forged and then silent for all.
The scars on those faces of terror, the wheals on those breasts laid bare,
The script of arrow and spear, the writing imprinted of swords,
They alone, as engraving on pillars of stone, tell the eagle descending,
Of spears that were countless but broken, arrows shattered when shot from the bow,
Hurled on those rocks that are hearts, on the face of those tablets of quartz
The sun rises, the sun drops away, while the hundreds of years roll by,
The desert is calm, bursts to storm, then the silence steals back to its place.
The far-away crags nod their heads, as they ponder on ancient times,
Proud with the silence of kings in loneliness grandeur and age.
For miles upon miles all around not a voice not a murmur,—no sound.
The wilds have engulfed for ever the shout of those mighty men,
Their tread that disturbed the waste and their steps have the winds swept away,
Casting over them hillocks of sand, and the rocks have grown up in their place.
The desert has stopped their life breath, lulled their valour for ever to sleep.
The blast is devouring their strength, and their glory congealed in the waste.
Burning heat of the sand for their pillows has beaten out flames from the rock.
The flame and the fire of the sun are caught in the mirror of spears,
And reflected as thousands of sparks on the faces like copper that shines.
Unveiled to the heat of the sun, generations have perished away.
The wind in the east saps their strength, it is scattered in blasts from the south,
Borne as dust to the dust of the dust of the earth, that pigmies may tread with their feet,
And dogs with their tongues lick the dust of strength timeless, the rot of their power,
They lick, and they wipe from their wouths;—with no thought of that lion manned race
Who fell and were silent for ever' on gold desert sands.
Now the fall of a shadow in diving scans over the sand of the plain,
It comes to the edge of the camp of the corpses, and hovers aloft,
Swooping and turning in flight, warping and weaving in circle;
Of a sudden it lingers o'er one of the bodies exposed—and it stays;
And the body and half of the next is dark with the shadow above.
A shock rends the air to its centre, a flapping of wings and a fall!
He drops the full weight of his body, falling at once on the prey;
'Tis a great limbèd son of the rocks, an eagle, hooked beak and curved claws,
The vulture's quartz talons are over the flint of their breasts pointed beak
Nosed against rigid faces———
In a moment the eagle stoops down on the corpse, iron scrapes upon iron.
But the carrion cruel, on a sudden, sheaths his weapons again with affright,
In dread of the silence of kings, and the glory of slumbering might;
And spreading his wings lifts him up, soaring in spirals on high,
Strikes out mighty waves in the heavens and shrieks at the pride of the sun;
High and aloft in the heavens, he hides in the azure skies.
For long yet there is trembling below, caught by the point of the spear,
A feather that fell from the eagle in flight but its bearer knew not;
There, deserted and orphaned, it waves in the light till it drops to the ground.
And the stillness steals back to its place; undisturbed are the mighty in sleep.

When the desert is fainting away in the heat of the noonday, behold
Like the shaft of a wine press a viper, a great speckled asp of the waste
Leads out the soft rings of its flesh to slidder and bathe in the sun.
Peradventure he writhes in the sand, or crouches all breathless and calm,
With softness dissolving away; in surfeit of brightness he sports;
Or alert he expands to his length, drawing onward and on toward the sun,
His mouth at its brilliance agape and his shimmering golden-scaled robe.
Like a child of the desert delights he is tender and lone on the plain.
Of a sudden the serpent springs forth, he slips from his place and starts,
Writhing in stealth he glides, o'er the heat of the sand he darts
Till he reaches the camp of the corpses, then ceases his hissing—and stays.
A third of his body erected—a column with symbols scored—
Domed head of gold crested aloft, extended his neck, eyes aflame,
Scanning from end to end the camp of the sleeping foe;
'Tis a multitudinous camp, tale of corpses that has no end,
All their faces are bared to the vault, and the brows of their eyes spell wrath.
Then the hatred preserved from the serpent of Eden till now lights up
And it lives in the green and the glare, in the flame of the serpent's eyes,
And a shudder of anger swells through from his head to his quivering tail.
Lo! he prostrates from his height, and quakes with a tremble of hisses,
Streched like a weapon of wrath, o'er the backs of the slain lying near,
And the viper's cruel head towers aloft, and the hiss of the serpent mouth
Is heard, whence two black tongued fangs are trembling, with anger aflame,
A moment—the serpent winces, about to retreat his head
With fear at the quiet of kings, and the glory of slumbering strength
He recoils in his length to the rear, and turning aside slinks away,
Sibilant, bounding and flashing, in dimless distant light;
And the stillness steals back to its place; undisturbed are the mighty in sleep.
When the night of the moon floats down and rests on the plains and the rocks,
And the wilderness draped, black and white, is hid but unravels its eye,
Miles on miles of the sand and the plain are lost in white ground of the light,
And the shadows are heavy which crouch at the side of its crags, that are reared
Like some mythical beasts or monsters, the mammoths of early time;
Ere the dawn goes up they silently steal to their world again.
The orb of a troubled moon looks down on the threefold rite—
The wilderness, night and the ancients, shedding a bashful light.
And the desert is troubled, and dreams, cruel dreams of eternal decay.
Soft is the wilderness moaning, heaving short sighs and long groans.
Then it is that the lion of might incarnate and strength leaps out
With confident step and no fear, he comes to the camp and stays still.
He raises his head of high heart and towers his mane crowned neck,
And his eyes are two soft, still embers, that spy on the camp of the foe;
And the camp is a far-flung camp, and the silence is great therein,
The mighty asleep hold their silence, none moving a hair or a lid;
They seem to be bound with black straps, bands that are shadows of spears;
The moon blanches the strength of their faces, the darkening brows of their eyes.
And the lion has paused there to marvel at the glory of slumbering might.
Hark! A reiterated knocking—the lion roars,
And for league upon league the desert and its outskirts are quaking afar,
The echo falls and spreads forth o'er the rocks and the silent hills,
Shivered to thousands of sounds on the edge of the distant waste.
The jackals respond to his cry and the hoot of the owls gives him answer,
The neigh of the wild ass rises, and the desert is filled with dread;
Is it not the howl of the wilderness, the bitter cry of the waste,
That tosses in pain for 'tis weak and hungered, its soul is parched?
The lion waits yet a moment to ponder the sound of his might.
Then he turns from beside the corpses, but calm and with wonted pride,
Lifting his feet and pacing, a flame of contempt in his eyes,
He steps gravely and, shaking his mane, king in splendour is gone far away.
For long yet the desert is angry and tossing it finds no rest,
It sighs in its sickness and groaning takes chastening with heart of ill grace.
Dawn—and 'tis weary of moaning, with restlessness sated and wrath
It sleeps, or half waking it weeps as the furies of dayspring strike fear.
The eye of the moon is waning, and the rim of the heaven grows white,
The shadows creep back to the mountain sides, there to melt away;
The rocks, grey and wrathful appear, their renown stills the tremulous waste,
It fumes in its breast yet a moment and pants, but no murmur is heard;
As the sun climbs up it is silent——'tis the silence as ever it was,
The strong lie as ever they lay——and aeons on aeons roll by.
At times will the desert awaken and gird at the calm everlasting,
It bestirs to avenge itself then, take revenge for its waste on its Maker,
It lifts itself 'gainst Him in storm, insurging in columns of sand,
And rises to hit the Creator, strike dread on His glorious throne;
It dares to repour divine anger, to throw it with ire at his feet,
Heaping its turmoil on God, with Chaos restored to its reign.
The Creator is wrathful and quaking, the face of the heavens is changed,
They are canopied over the desert, 'tis a bowl of iron at white heat,
And there issues from them the blood anger, the red of the vision breaks forth
On the space of eternity, flames to the top of the kindled rocks.
And the desert is bitterly wroth and panting, shakes, tossed to its depth.
All the nethermost parts of the grave are mingled with peaks of the world;
The lions and tigers blown round in the wheel of the whirling wind
Are storm-rent, their manes stiff with fear, roaring thunder, their eyes shooting sparks
They seem to be floating in air, confounded, perplexed. In that hour,
Seized with a fever of valiance, the mighty of dread awake
That race bold and mighty bestirs, the race that is mighty in war,
Their eyes are as lightning, their faces are flame—With their hands to their swords
Are the warriors thundering forth with the voice of the six hundred thousand,
The shout rends the storm, with the groan of the desert in anger it vies,
And the tempest beats round them, and round them is anger.—They shout:
“Warriors are we!
Last in the era of bondage,
The first to be free.
'Tis alone our strong hand
That has ripped from the pride of our neck
The weighty yoke band.
Our head is exalted to heaven,
In our sight, it is small,
We have roamed in the desert, the waste,
“Our Mother” we call.
On the crags of the rocks, in cloud reaches
We have quaffed from its spring
Freedom, with eagles of heaven;
What lord is our King?
And if an avenging Almighty,
Shuts His desert, around
We have our revenge, for a song
Of revolt we can sound:
To arms! To lances: Fall in:
To the right,—form!
'gainst the ire of the Heavens in wrath
We'll advance, through the storm!

We are here, to advance!
If th' Almighty denies us His hand.
And His ark will not move from its place,
Let's go forward without it, on chance!
'Neath His wrathful eye in the angry
Lightning of his gaze
We'll conquer the peaks of the mountains
And armed foes amaze,
Attend!
For the storm itself calls: ‘Make the assault!’
To arms!
To lances! The hills must be shattered,
The mountains rent,
Or our corpses shall tumble in piles,
We are here! To th'ascent!”
Who could conquer the desert in power, when dread voices ascend in the storm?
'This nought but the desert in turmoil, a cruel, bitter chance, full of terror.

Calm and clear is the waste; light illumines the heavens, and silence is great,
And caravans stayed by the whirlwind rise from their knees to bless God;
Spread out on the sand as before are the six hundred thousand of corpses,
On their faces the Light—it is death that maketh their peace even with God.
No man upon earth knows their place, the time when they fell, when they rose,
The storm has heaped mountains around them and shut them for ever away.
But perchance a bold spirited horseman withdraws from a caravan train,
Set spurs to his towering steed and dives through the sea of the plain;
Tight on his charger's saddle, he flies with the wings of a bird,
Hurling forward his lance he catches it up in the speed of its flight,
It seems that he hastes with the lightning, coursing before him away,
And he, leaping after, grasps hold, then sets it to freedom again.
In the far has the vision faded, but the steed sweeping onward, lifts high
Its rider to peaks of the mountains, pillowed on cloud. All at once
The charger is trembling, it curvets and rears itself backward in fright,
The horseman, is puzzled and shading his hand o'er his eyes peers afar,
Then wheels on his steed of a sudden, the terror of God on his face,
Urging his charger with strength, like an arrow sped forth, speeds away,
And regaining his caravan, whispers to friends what his eyes have beheld;
The Arabs give 'ear and look mutely from one to another, amazed,
They enquire of their elder about it, and he is one holy and wise.
The sage one gives utterance and says “O thou faithful, let Allah be praised!
“By the beard of the prophet thine eyes on the dead of the desert have gazed.
“'Tis God's camp, 'tis a race of the ancients who gloried in power of old time.
“Theirs indeed was defiance of soul; they were hard as the rocks of Irak;
“They embittered the life of their prophet, and even 'gainst God they rebelled,
“So He closed them about with the hills, lowered sleep everlasting above,
And commanded the desert to guard them, a monument there for all age,
“His faithful may Allah withhold from touching the hem of their robe!
“It is told of an Arab who took just one thread from the fringe of a cloak,
“How at once all his body dried up till the guilt was restored to its place;
“The ancestors they of the people of the Book.” Thus the sage one declared;
The Arabs give ear and are dumb, with Allah's own fear on their face,
As they tread along slow in the tracks of their camels, to weariness laden,
And for long yet there gleam from afar the white turbans they wear on their head,
And the humps of the camels pass slowly to fade in the distance clear,
As if they were bearing away on their backs yet another old tale———
And the stillness steals back to its place, and the desert stays childless.