A Chant of Mystics and Other Poems/In the Palm Groves of Memphis
IN THE PALM GROVES OF MEMPHIS
The Khamsin[1] comes robed in the Lybian sands,
Veiled in the haze of June,
Armed with Sahara's serpent-wreathed brands,
Shod with the sun and moon;
Swift winging in a cycloramic flame,—
Of Typhon born, unseeing and untame,—
She comes her reign of terror to proclaim,
While crowning day and night with all the blazonry of tropic noon.
She claps her iridescent wings, and lo!
The rolling heat,
Tremulous, reverberant, a-glow,
Sibilant, fleet,
Sweeps over the land with unabating ire,
Devouring Spring's heritage entire,
Setiing the very pyramids a-fire,
Engulfing even the turtle's shelter and the turtle-dove's retreat.
Alas! where are the roses which the prime
Of summer share
With the sesame, the myrtle and the thyme
In meadows fair?
Where is the sacred lotus and the bloom
Of cumin and mimosa, whose perfume
Once filled the shrine of Isis and her tomb?
Where is the pomegranate flower that shone in
Cleopatra's hair?
Where is the riant beauty of the land
Of mystic runes
That decorates its shimmering robes of sand
With emerald moons?
Where are the emerald shelters, desert-bound,
That with the prayer of caravans resound?
Where is the desert trail, the watering ground
That murmurs low of lost oases amidst the fast
dissolving dunes ?
Where is the caravan that yesternight,
To the merry sound
Of bells, set out of the city of delight
To Nubia bound?
Where is the Nubian caravan that late
Passed heavy-laden through Denderah’s gate,
Speeding to reach the city for the fete,
When gold and silver freely flow, when Allah’s
bounties abound?
Where is the crested lark, the golden thrush
Of the sacred grove,
Which made the sensitive accacia blush
And bloom with love?
Where has the bearded bustard fallen? where
Is Ibis, once the pet of Hermes fair,
Nursing his purple wings and his despair?
Where is the red flamingo hiding, where's the house
of the turtle-dove ?
Across the welkin, like a shadow cast
Upon a cloud, but one
Undaunted dips his black wings in the blast
And rears anon
This form against the rushing winds; alone
The vulture hovers around the flame-draped throne
Of Death, and over the palms that rock and moan,
Peering through the desolation, staring at the
laughing stun,
And Khamsin, in her chariot of fire,
Upon which clings
The moult of her unsatiable desire,
Delirious sings,
And shakes the harvest from her tangled hair—
The sesame seeds, the grasses sere, the tare,
The golden tassels which the rushes wear,
The purple feathers of the ibis and the swallow’s
shrivelled wings.
She shakes her booty from her sapphire tresses
In gleeful guile,
As she in passing savagely caresses
The crouching Nile;
While everywhere, within her sight or call,
Along its banks or in its rushes tall,
All things are swooning in her leaden thrall,—
Yea, prostrate is the salamander, prostrate is the
crocodile
Aad when at intervals her madness takes
sudden turn,
A lull ensues and over Egypt breaks
The sacred urn
Of silence; while to quench her ancient thirst,
Which licked up every running stream and cursed
Every pool in cave or hollow nursed,
She plunges deep into the Nile and wonders why his
waters burn,
And wonders too when in the winnowed sands,
Out of the gloom
Of labyrinthine avenues and lands
Of mystic bloom,
Arise the scents of blossoms that have known
Ten thousand Khamsins, and were often blown
To dust ere Menes sat upon his throne—
The blossoms of the teeming depths that float above
the crest of doom.
- ↑ A dry wind from the Sahara that prevails in Egypt about fifty days. Hence its name—Khamsin.