TO THE AUTHOR OF EOTHEN.
If I may choose (out of our travelled bands)
Friend or companion to make bright, the way;
Or draw the grandeur out from Orient lands,
Where Libanus mounts up and meets the day;
Or face, midst trackless, boundless, burning sands,
The Desert Silence—as it pants for prey;
Be thou (oh Author of Eothen), mine;
Who show'st whate'er the region, stern or gay,
Whate'er the scene—life, death, sublime decay,
For all fine things, and apprehension fine.
'Tis well to ride abroad on the untamed waves;
To shoot the desert with the camel's speed;
To muse o'er discrowned Egypt's wondrous graves,
And trace her story downwards, deed by deed;
Yet, half the lustre of our life were hid,
Our travel idle, meditation nought,
Without such friend in give back thought for thought,
From waste and sea, mountain and pyramid.
Barry Cornwall.