Religious Poems, Part 1. / Part 5 From Volume II of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier

This eBook was produced by David Widger
Where Time the measure of his hours By changeful bud and blossom keeps, And, like a young bride crowned with flowers, Fair Shiraz in her garden sleeps;
Where, to her poet's turban stone, The Spring her gift of flowers imparts, Less sweet than those his thoughts have sown In the warm soil of Persian hearts:
There sat the stranger, where the shade Of scattered date-trees thinly lay, While in the hot clear heaven delayed The long and still and weary day.
Strange trees and fruits above him hung, Strange odors filled the sultry air, Strange birds upon the branches swung, Strange insect voices murmured there.
And strange bright blossoms shone around, Turned sunward from the shadowy bowers, As if the Gheber's soul had found A fitting home in Iran's flowers.
Whate'er he saw, whate'er he heard, Awakened feelings new and sad,— No Christian garb, nor Christian word, Nor church with Sabbath-bell chimes glad,
But Moslem graves, with turban stones, And mosque-spires gleaming white, in view, And graybeard Mollahs in low tones Chanting their Koran service through.
The flowers which smiled on either hand, Like tempting fiends, were such as they Which once, o'er all that Eastern land, As gifts on demon altars lay.
As if the burning eye of Baal The servant of his Conqueror knew, From skies which knew no cloudy veil, The Sun's hot glances smote him through.
Ah me! the lonely stranger said, The hope which led my footsteps on, And light from heaven around them shed, O'er weary wave and waste, is gone!
Where are the harvest fields all white, For Truth to thrust her sickle in? Where flock the souls, like doves in flight, From the dark hiding-place of sin?