| |
| MUST I still live in Timbuctoo, | |
| Midst burning and shifting sands, | |
| In a small straw hut, near a foul morass,— | |
| When the earth has sweet green lands? | |
| |
| No breath of air, no song of a bird, | 5 |
| And scarcely the voice of man, | |
| Save the water-carrier’s wailful cry, | |
| As he plods to fill calabash-can. | |
| |
| No fruit, no tree, no herbage, nor soil | |
| Where a plant or root might grow, | 10 |
| Save the desert-shrub full of wounding thorns, | |
| As the lips of the camels know. | |
| |
| The main street steams with the caravans, | |
| Tired oxen and camels kneel down; | |
| Box, package, and bales, are sold or exchanged,— | 15 |
| And the train leaves our silent town. | |
| |
| The white man comes, and the white man goes, | |
| But his looks and his words remain; | |
| They show me my heart can put forth green leaves, | |
| And my withering thoughts find rain. | 20 |
| |
| O, why was I born in Timbuctoo?— | |
| For now that I hear the roar | |
| Of distant lands, with large acts in men’s hands, | |
| I can rest in my hut no more. | |
| |
| New life! new hope! and change! | 25 |
| Your echoes are in my brain; | |
| Farewell to my thirsty home, | |
| I must traverse the land and main! | |
| |
| And can I, then, leave thee, poor Timbuctoo, | |
| Where I first beheld the sky? | 30 |
| Where my own loved maid now sleeps in the shade, | |
| Where the bones of my parents lie! | |
| |
