"THE PRAYER IN THE DESERT."(Painted by Gérôme.)
Serene, alone, the Arab stands;
Behind him stretch the solemn sands
Back to the barren hills that lie,
A tawny ridge, against the sky.
Slow-winding from their dim defiles
O'er scorching waste and sedgy isles,
From lordly Cairo, Mecca-bound,
Threading the plain without a sound
Save when the burdened camels groan
Or tents are pitched by fountain-stone,
The long-drawn caravan is seen
Wrapped in the desert's blinding sheen.
Behind him stretch the solemn sands
Back to the barren hills that lie,
A tawny ridge, against the sky.
Slow-winding from their dim defiles
O'er scorching waste and sedgy isles,
From lordly Cairo, Mecca-bound,
Threading the plain without a sound
Save when the burdened camels groan
Or tents are pitched by fountain-stone,
The long-drawn caravan is seen
Wrapped in the desert's blinding sheen.
No muezzin calls from minaret,
Though clear the fiery sun has set;
But waste and hill and brooding sky
Have stirred his soul to deep reply,
And he, the chief of all his tribe,
Has spurred him forward to ascribe
Glory to Allah, ere the gloom
And fierceness of the dread simoom
Shall overwhelm, or failing well
No pilgrim spare, His power to tell.
Though clear the fiery sun has set;
But waste and hill and brooding sky
Have stirred his soul to deep reply,
And he, the chief of all his tribe,
Has spurred him forward to ascribe
Glory to Allah, ere the gloom
And fierceness of the dread simoom
Shall overwhelm, or failing well
No pilgrim spare, His power to tell.
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