Page:Oriental Sketches Dramatic Sketches and Tales.pdf/52

The air is still—there's not the faintest sigh
Breathed from a vagrant zephyr wandering by;
The panting buffalo, oppressed with heat,
Roams o'er the plain to seek some cool retreat;
The fainting bullocks drop upon the roads,
And weary camels sink beneath their loads.
The sultriness encreases—soaring high,
Rending the air with shriek and doleful cry,
The startled birds from jungle, jheel, and brake,
Their native haunts instinctively forsake;
Yet one small cloud of darkest blue alone
Appears above the distant horizon;
And all around is calm—now rushing forth
In billowy masses from the smoking earth,
Volumes of sand in wild confusion rise
And lift their summits to the darkening skies;
A lurid veil the city's pomp enshrouds,
And now in wrathful guise the sable clouds
Come rolling on—yet still throughout the plain
No breath of air precedes the hurricane,