Mandragora/The Writer

by John Cowper Powys

IN the shade of the pyramids
I knelt and wrote on the sand,
While with softly drooping, veiléd lids,
You watched in the shade of those pyramids
   The movements of my hand.

I wrote of the fall of Troy,
   I wrote of the Grecian ships,
I wrote of Adonis the lovely boy.
And of winged Psyche's virgin joy
   As she clung to Eros' lips.

I wrote of the Syrian pearls.
   Of Herod, the Jewish king.
I wrote of Salome's tossing curls
And the pale lips sweeter than any girl's,
   Of her blood-stained offering.

But all the while you kept.
   Dark-lowered your veiled lids.
You neither laughed nor murmured nor wept;
A watcher would surely have dreamed you slept
   In the shade of those pyramids.

But when I wrote in the sand
   A little unlegended name,
   A human unhistoried name.
With a bitter cry and uplifted hand
You rose and over that famished land,
   Fled away like a flame.