The Drought.
It fringes the furze of the parching tongue
In the cheek of the fevered sky,
And deepens the glare of the sun’s red stare
In his dust-hung canopy.
The wrinkled rivers crawl and creep
O’er the sands of the sun-scorched bars,
And their fetid breath like the breath of Death
Floats up to the burning stars.
O it’s heat—heat—heat—
Till the heart throbs hot,
And dust, till the eyes grow dim,
And the fire-brands burn in the eyeball’s clot
And whirl while the sockets swim.
The white shafts shoot from the furnaced West
As bolts from a blazing gun,
And again from the East like a blood-red beast
Bursts out the burnished sun.
The crinkled air crawls o’er the earth,
A snake with a withered tongue—
And over the heath of his blight beneath
A spume-flaked banner is flung.
O it is dust—dust—dust—
Till the eyeballs ache,
And heat till the heart-drops run,
For the brown earth burns in the butchering bake
That leaps from the soul of the sun.
John Trotwood Moore.