Page:The Poet in the Desert.djvu/12



The river builds a safe fortress where the birds hide and

the antelopes come for shelter. The carpet is a weaving of sweet grasses ; But at last the impatient life-givers marry The marshes which in the Springtime are green with

tule-rush and in Autumn copper-red; Vast sanctuaries for the herons, ducks, pelicans and

plover. Here breed the stately cranes which in the fading year

mount high to the cloudless heavens and circle about

calling for the Southland. Who is their monitor? Who is their pilot?

The mountains afar girdle the Desert as a zone of

amethyst ; Pale, translucent walls of opal, Girdling the Desert as Life is girt by Eternity, They lift their heads high above our tribulation Into the azure vault of Time; Theirs are the airy castles which are set upon foundations

of sapphire. My soul goes out to them as the bird to her secret nest. They are the abode of peace. The vexed soul's brooding

place. Behind them, Creation slumbers, a naked god ; His head pillowed on a rock, molten in the fires of chaos ; He dreams of gods to come. Who shall awake him? Shall the flowers awake him with their tender fingers, or

with the fairy music of their tremulous bells? Larkspur and blue-bells, lupins, spikes of lapislazuli ; Wild sweet-william, pink as Aurora's bed? Sunflowers which on rocky hillsides flaunt the banners of

their conquest? And golden seas of rabbit-brush which roll to the sunset,

commingling ?

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