| |
| UPON a parched and arid waste, | |
| Beneath the scorching summer sun, | |
| Where nimble swifts each other chased | |
| O’er gaping fissures, checked to run | |
| Their countless millions meshy lines | 5 |
| In tangents, angles, arcs and sines,— | |
| A field where Science, urged by Art, | |
| With Nature for a counterpart, | |
| Might with her pencil sketch and pore | |
| O’er varied shapes forevermore,— | 10 |
| The weary travellers struggled on | |
| Across that stretching sea of sand, | |
| A famishing and thirsty band. | |
| A land of streamlets to have won | |
| Had been to them a paradise: | 15 |
| When, lo! ahead there seemed to rise, | |
| Along the distant horizon, | |
| A scene of sylvan loveliness, | |
| To greet them in their sore distress; | |
| A scene where winding rivulets, | 20 |
| All fringed with branching, shady trees, | |
| Coursed smoothly o’er their sandy beds, | |
| And glimmered far, like silvery threads; | |
| Where fountains, with a thousand jets, | |
| Flung out their crystal tapestries, | 25 |
| To form in many a glassy pool | |
| In shady nooks, serene and cool. | |
| |
| And then a change, and lo! a lake, | |
| All dotted o’er with verdant isles, | |
| Before the vision peaceful smiles; | 30 |
| And not a ripple seems to break | |
| The mirrored surface of its deep, | |
| While sombre shadows o’er it creep, | |
| Like spiritual argosies | |
| Borne by an imperceptive breeze. | 35 |
| Upon the isles, that gently swell | |
| Up from the water’s curving line, | |
| Gleams many an airy citadel, | |
| Where princes might in splendor dwell, | |
| Or poets woo the mystic Nine. | 40 |
| Tall trees and clumps of shrubbery, | |
| Supporting many a clinging vine | |
| That hangs in rich festoonery, | |
| Thus forming bowers where might recline | |
| The Beauties of Mythology, | 45 |
| In keeping with their high degree. | |
| |
| Fresh as the breath of early Spring, | |
| Seductive as the siren’s song, | |
| The panorama moves along. | |
| The wand of magic seems to fling | 50 |
| Its mystic beauties o’er the scene. | |
| Oh, why must space still intervene? | |
| |
| Deceptive picture! pure and chaste | |
| Damascus of the western waste! | |
| Where—ah! it fades! it melts away! | 55 |
| Far o’er the desert, grim and gray, | |
| Along the hazy horizon, | |
| Tall mammoth shapes stalk stately on | |
| Across the visionary range | |
| And disappear; and then, more strange, | 60 |
| A band of mounted harlequins | |
| In madcap antics scour the plain. | |
| You look to see them once again, | |
| But no! they ’re gone. No object wins | |
| The searching eye; all ’s blank and bare: | 65 |
| No hint of beauty lingers where | |
| The Mirage spread her canopy | |
| And moved the soul to ecstasy. | |
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