 | Poems |  |
She turned—oh! fairest sight, if sight it be,
The sleeping silver of that inland sea.
She gazed—O gaze of hope and life and light!
Those crystal waters glancing pure and bright;
From Seir's red crags and Hazargaddah's heath,
Eastward to Eder and the Sea of Death.
The dismal wilderness was past and gone,
The waves were streaming where the sands had shone;
Streaming o'er tree and crag, by bush and brake,
The silent splendour of a windless lake,
In whose broad wave so radiantly blue
Each feathered palm, each lonely plant that grew,
Each mountain on the distant desert-side
Shone double, shadowed in the sleeping tide.
Yet was it strange! no dream so passing strange,
As the quick phantom of that fairy change;
And stranger still, that ever as they came
To lave the burning lip, and brow of flame,
The waters fading far and farther still,
Cheated their chase and mocked their baffled will.
Alas! no pleasant waters rippled there;
The lying mirage lured them to despair.
The sleeping silver of that inland sea.
She gazed—O gaze of hope and life and light!
Those crystal waters glancing pure and bright;
From Seir's red crags and Hazargaddah's heath,
Eastward to Eder and the Sea of Death.
The dismal wilderness was past and gone,
The waves were streaming where the sands had shone;
Streaming o'er tree and crag, by bush and brake,
The silent splendour of a windless lake,
In whose broad wave so radiantly blue
Each feathered palm, each lonely plant that grew,
64
Shone double, shadowed in the sleeping tide.
Yet was it strange! no dream so passing strange,
As the quick phantom of that fairy change;
And stranger still, that ever as they came
To lave the burning lip, and brow of flame,
The waters fading far and farther still,
Cheated their chase and mocked their baffled will.
Alas! no pleasant waters rippled there;
The lying mirage lured them to despair.
| Poems | |