Stars of the Desert/The City: Song of Mahomed Akrara
The City: Song of Mahomed Akram
Sinning, and sinned against, the City lay,
Burnt by the sun's caresses day by day,
Passive, defenceless, with her latest breath
Conceiving at his pleasure plague and death.
Relentlessly he poured his ardent rays
Into her cloistered courts and secret ways,
While the hot gold he spilt upon the plain
Rose from the furnace of the sands again.
Beneath a sullen sunset, dimly red,
Rent by the lamentations for the dead,
Whose burning-ghats defiled the stagnant air,
The breathless city waited in despair.
Then came the flutter of a sudden breeze,
Fragrant with scents of aromatic trees,
Cool with the magic freshness of the sea,
And the dry maize-leaves shivered restlessly.
The wind went onwards, to the outer gate,
Thrilled with soft pity for the City's fate,
Dispensing coolness, passed the inner wall,
And fanned the lips of those about to fall.
Swept in his freshness through the stifling lane,
Flew through low casements, fluttered forth again,
Winnowed the market-place, whose floor was red,
And lightly smoothed the cereclothes of the dead.
Stole through the women's chambers, close and sweet,
Lifted their clinging silks from face to feet,
Cooled the pale brows that glimmered in the dusk,
Then gained the open faintly tinged with musk.
Entered the prison, soothed the ring-worn wrist,
The deeper wounds of fettered ankles kissed,
Giving the only freedom that was craved;
Freedom from heat. Thus was the City saved.
His coolness left her fresh as any flower,
And to restrict the sun's relentless power,
He veiled her with soft clouds and bid them stay
Till all the heat-wrought ill should pass away.
I would have asked such aid of thee, had I but dared;
Thou couldst have done as much for me, hadst thou but cared.