IN ARABIA

Here were topaz-orchards ; there
Emeralds hanging in the air,

Rubies as great apples big,

Sapphires larger than a fig:

When the breeze spoke, low and sweet,
Pearls kept pattering round their feet ;
Never yet did forest bear

Stones so radiant as grew there.

When they passed the onyx tree,
Chrysolite, chalcedony,

Straight they found beyond the wood
Wonder in another mood.

For, as still as warriors slain,
Thousands slumbered on the plain ;
All a deadly silence kept,
Elephants and camels slept,

Not a hound that twitched an ear,
As the children’s tread came near ;
Negro servants, black as soot,
Never stirred a dusky foot ;

All the army tricked for fight
Slumbered deeply as the night,
And the plume upon his cap
Fluttered o’er the general’s map.