Nights on the Indian Ocean,
Long nights of space and dream,
When silent Sirius round the Pole
Swings on, with steady gleam;
When oft the pushing prow
Seems pressing where before
No prow has ever pressed—or shall
From hence forevermore.
Nights on the Indian Ocean,
Long nights—with land at last,
Dim land, dissolving the long sea-spell
Into a sudden past—
That seems as far away
As this our life shall seem
When under the shadow of death's shore
We drop its ended dream.
SIGHTING ARABIA
My heart, that is Arabia, O see!
That talismanic sweep of sunset coast,
Which lies like richly wrought enchantment's ghost
Before us, bringing back youth's witchery!
"Arabian Nights!" At last to us one comes,
The crescent moon upon its purple brow.
Will not Haroun and Bagdad rise up now
There on the shore, to beating of his drums?
Is not that gull a roc? That sail Sindbad's?
That rocky pinnacle a minaret?
Does the wind call to prayer from it? O yet
I hear the fancy, fervid as a lad's!
"Allah il Allah," rings it; O my heart,
Fall prostrate, for to Mecca we are near,
That flashing light is but a sign sent clear
From her, your houri, as her curtains part!
Soon she will lean out from her lattice, soon,
And bid you climb up to your Paradise,
Which is her panting lips and passion eyes
Under the drunken sweetness of the moon!