THE DESERT
That silence which enfolds the Great BeyondBroods in these spaces where the yucca palmsLike gray old votaries chant unworded psalms,Grand, voiceless harmonies where-to the Heavens respond.Lone, vast, eternal as Eternity,The brown wastes crawl to clutch the wrinkled hills,—Till night lets down her solemn dusk and fillsThe waiting void with haunting mystery.Here Solitude hath made her dwelling place,As when of old amid untrodden sands,Slow-journeying, wise men of all alien landsSought at her feet life’s hidden roads to trace.All ways of earth, still glad or sad they go,The roads of life—till breath of man shall cease—Silent, the desert keeps her ancient peace,And that last secret which the dead may know.