SONNETS
COLOR
A blue-black Nubian plucking oranges
At Jaffa by a sea of malachite,
In red tarboosh, green sash, and flowing white
Burnous—among shadowy memories
That haunt me yet by these bleak northern seas
He lives forever in my eyes' delight;
Bizarre, superb in young immortal might,
A god of old barbaric mysteries.
Maybe he lived a life of lies and lust,
Maybe his bones are now hut scattered dust;
Yet for a moment he was life supreme
Exultant and unchallenged; and my rhyme
Would set him safely out of reach of time
In that old heaven where things are what they seem.
OBLIVION
Near the great pyramid, unshadowed, white,
With apex piercing the white noon-day blaze,
Swathed in white robes beneath the blinding rays,
Lie sleeping Bedouins drenched in white-hot light.
About them, searing to the tingling sight,
Swims the white dazzle of the desert ways,
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