who gave Egypt laws,
Is not--and is forgot--and never was!

FROM A FELUCCA

A white tomb in the desert,
An Arab at his prayers
Beside the Nile's dark water,
Where the lone camel fares.
An ibis on the sunset,
A slow shadouf at rest,
And in the caravansary
Low music for the guest.

Above the tawny city
A gleam of minarets,
Resounding the muezzin's
Clear call as the sun sets.
A mystery, a silence,
A breathing of strange balm,
A peace from Allah on the wind
And on the sky his calm.

THE EGYPTIAN WAKES

I woke at night in my eternal tomb
The desert sands had hid a thousand years,
And heard the Nile-crier across the gloom
Calling, "The flood has come! beseech the gods!"
I rose in haste, as one who blindly hears,
And sought the barterers of grain and wine
Culled for the praise and service of divine
Great Isis, by the slave who for her plods.
But as I passed along, woe! what was this,
Strange faces and strange fashions and strange fanes
Standing upon the midnight; Oh, the pains
That swept across my startled thought's abyss!
I moaned. My body crumbled into dust.
And then my soul fled Here--where all souls must.

THE IMAM'S PARABLE

Behold, the wind of the Desert rose,
Khamsin, in a shroud of sand,
And swept the Libyan waste, across
To far Somali-land.
His voice was thick with the drouth of death
And smote the earth as a burning breath,
Or as a curse which Allah saith
Unto a demon-band.

The caravan from the oasis
Of palm-engirt Kurkur
Shuddered and couched in shaken heaps,
The horror to endure.
Its mighty Sheik, like a soul in Hell
Who longs for the lute of Israfel,
Longed for the trickle of Keneh's well,
Imperishably pure!

Three days he longed, and the wind three days
About him whirled the shroud.
Then did a shrill dawn bring the sun--
And a gaunt vulture-crowd.
A few bleak bones on the Desert still
Lie for the Judgment Day to thrill
Again into life--if Allah will:
_Let not your heart be proud._

SONGS OF A SEA-FARER

I

Many are on the sea to-day
With all sails set.
The tide rolls in a restive gray,
The wind blows wet.
The gull is weary of his wings,
And I am weary of all things.

Heavy upon me longing lies,
My sad eyes gaze
Across the leagues that sink and rise
And sink always.
My life has sunk and risen so,
I'd have it cease awhile to flow.

II

All the winds of the sea weary,
All the waves of the sea rest,