THE WATER TANK AT DUSK
(In the Harqua Hala desert.)
The wild, bare, rock-fanged hills that all day long
Shut 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 paws
And drowsy eyes that watch the evening fire.
Their sun-baked, tawny brown melts into mist
Of rose and violet and translucent blue,
With gold dust powdered softly through the air
That swims and shimmers as if all the earth
Were 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 feel
The night wind, cool and gentle, whispering
In the white-flowered mesquite where wild bees hum
Delirious with honey sweets and fragrances;
And through the leafless thorn whose tortured boughs
Were wreathed, men say, to crown the suffering Christ
On his high cross. (And still each Passion Week
The sorrowing tree wears buds like drops of blood
In memory.) With swift, soft whirr of wings
The 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 pool
Where night moths hover like moon-elves astray.
It seems the deep blue sky has fallen there
In the blue, star-set water, where the wind
Makes mimic waves that hardly over-toss
The peach-leaf boat on which the dragon fly
Rides sailor-wise to rest his gorgeous wings.
The hot, dry, day-time scent of sun-burned sand
Is drowned in sweetness of the blossoming grape,
And pungent odour of the wax-white cups
Of yerba mansa, hedging the blue pool
With a green wall whose every flower
Blooms twice, once on its tall-leafed stalk, and once
Down where the waves like silver mirrors mix
Its whiteness with the red pomegranate stars.
In the shadow of the plume-branched tamerask
There is a half-hushed, honey-throated call,
And from the cotton-wood’s topmost moonlit bough
Music’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.