But mocking Khamsin, when her mood is spent,
Lulls the morn
In luscious breezes swooning with the scent
Of love reborn;—
Carressing winds! the tree senescent grows
In you as young as fruitful, and the rose
Upon the bistre lips of Ramesis blows,
Whispering of things immortal to the wandering
seed and the reed forlorn.
She passes in phantasmagoric waves
Over shifting dunes,
Through shattered orbs, beyond the barren caves
Of mouldering moons,
While the antique youth the Sun, as young to-day
As when the cricket first essayed her lay,
Across the flood of Nilus makes his way,
And with him weaves for Egypt wondrous summer
garlands and gallons.
And lo, the Khamsin of the world, in flames
Of crimson hue
And clouds of vitriolic dust, proclaims
The era new;
But through the storm a spirit wings his flight
Across the phosphorescent gulfs of night,
And this, upon the rising sun, doth write:—
God liveth, yea, God liveth still and man shall
nothing rue.
32
