THE WATER TANK AT DUSK
(In the Harqua Hala desert.)
The wild, bare, rock-fanged hills that all day longShut in the hand-width valley from the world,Like wolfish out-posts which no foot might pass,Creep close as friendly dogs with head on pawsAnd drowsy eyes that watch the evening fire.Their sun-baked, tawny brown melts into mistOf rose and violet and translucent blue,With gold dust powdered softly through the airThat swims and shimmers as if all the earthWere carven jewels bathed in golden light.In the soft dusk the desert seems to pant,Only half-rested from the burning day;Yet stirs a little happily to feelThe night wind, cool and gentle, whisperingIn the white-flowered mesquite where wild bees humDelirious with honey sweets and fragrances;And through the leafless thorn whose tortured boughsWere wreathed, men say, to crown the suffering ChristOn his high cross. (And still each Passion WeekThe sorrowing tree wears buds like drops of bloodIn memory.) With swift, soft whirr of wingsThe gray doves flutter down beside the pool,Cooing their love notes sweet as fairy flutes,And in the grass the fiddler-crickets chirp.The spotted night hawk saws his raucous note,Like some harsh rasp upon an o’er-drawn string;The squeaking bats drop from the cotton-wood trees,Dipping and diving round the shining poolWhere night moths hover like moon-elves astray.It seems the deep blue sky has fallen thereIn the blue, star-set water, where the windMakes mimic waves that hardly over-tossThe peach-leaf boat on which the dragon flyRides sailor-wise to rest his gorgeous wings.The hot, dry, day-time scent of sun-burned sandIs drowned in sweetness of the blossoming grape,And pungent odour of the wax-white cupsOf yerba mansa, hedging the blue poolWith a green wall whose every flowerBlooms twice, once on its tall-leafed stalk, and onceDown where the waves like silver mirrors mixIts whiteness with the red pomegranate stars.In the shadow of the plume-branched tameraskThere is a half-hushed, honey-throated call,And from the cotton-wood’s topmost moonlit boughMusic’s enraptured soul seems waked to answer.So sweet, so low, so pure, so tender-clear;So brimmed with joy; so wistful, plaintive-sad;As if all love o’ the world pulsed in that throat;As if all pain o’ life beat in the heart below.It is the mocking bird to his brown mate,The desert’s vesper song of rest and peace.