On my defenceless head. The burning winds
Seemed drying up the blood within my veins.
The straggling flowers that had outlived the storm
Won but a feeble, half-contemptuous smile;
And if a bird attempted a brief song,
I closed my ears lest it should burst my brain.
After much wandering I came at last
To cooler skies and a less stifling air;
And finally to this more temperate clime.
Where every beauty is of milder type—
Where the simoon nor tempest ever come,
And I can soothe the fever of my soul
In the bland breezes blowing from the West."
NEVADA.
Sphinx, down whose rugged face
The sliding centuries their furrows cleave
By sun and frost and cloud-burst; scarce to leave
Perceptible a trace
Of age or sorrow;
Faint hints of yesterdays with no to-morrow;—
My mind regards thee with a questioning eye,
To know thy secret, high.
If Theban mystery,
With head of woman, soaring, bird-like wings
And serpent's tail on lion's trunk, were things
Puzzling in history;
And men invented
For it an origin which represented
Chimera and a monster double-headed,
By myths Phenician wedded—
Their issue being this—
