Poems (Hardy)/The lion in the desert

by Irenè Hardy

THE LION IN THE DESERT

HERE must I crouch beneath the shriveled sage,
 Until the night comes down upon the sand
 A-scorch with fiery day, where it has spanned
With senseless blue the desert's biting rage
At beast and bush, since morn, as if to wage
 A war of hate on all the hollow land.
 Here must I lie alone, a-thirst, unfanned
By stir of leaves, trapped in the sun's own cage.
I know the bare pool by the dead cliff's foot;
 If the fierce sun lap it not all ere dark
  As he laps my blood now, I'll bring her there,
My mate, panting yonder at the hot root
 Of that white rock,—gate of the devil's park
  Wherein the red sun finds his nightly lair!

II

Ah, drink, poor mate, here in the shrunken pool,
 Enough, now, till, when the darkest dark drops black,
 We follow forth the sprinkled shining track
Of the unhurting stars, slow by the cool
Flow of low streams; the desert shall not fool
 Our footsteps out across its flaring rack
 Again, nor take our blood, nor toll us back
To grisly empires where the sun has rule:
For we are masters of the world, not he;
 The night is always ours; not even the stars
  Have dared to interfere, and the high moon
Goes by her own white path, though she can see
 Ours leads the best way. There no desert bars,
  And cool in thickets deep we 'll sleep at noon.