Pictures in Rhyme/A Desert Night

by Arthur Clark Kennedy

A DESERT NIGHT

Awake! Awake! Awake!
Stand to your arms like men;
For the muffled tread of ten thousand feet,
The roll of wheels, and redoubled beat
Of changing hoofs, are abroad on the night.
Awake!
Hark! how it comes again.
The keen night-air whispers light,
'Awake!'
••••••••• Asleep! Asleep! Asleep!
Deaf and dumb to the sounds of life,
Sand in his eyes and mouth and ears,
But awake to the secret of manifold years,
Under the broad desert-sheet he lies
Asleep!
Lost are all sounds of strife,
Dead as the body that dies.
We weep!