Deep in her eyes the lamp of night
Burns with a secret flame,
Where shadows pass that have no sight,
And ghosts that have no name.
For mute is battle's brazen horn
That rang for Priest and King,
And she who drank of that brave morn
Is pale with evening.
An hour there is when bright words flow,
A little hour for sleep,
An hour between, when lights are low,
And then she seems to weep,
But no less lovely than of old
She shines, and almost hears
The horns that blew in days of gold,
The shouting charioteers.
And still she breaks the hearts of men,
Their hearts and all their pride,
Doomed to be cruel once again,
And live dissatisfied.
WAR SONG OF THE SARACENS
We are they who come faster than fate: we are they who ride early or
late:
We storm at your ivory gate: Pale Kings of the Sunset, beware!
Not on silk nor in samet we lie, not in curtained solemnity die
Among women who chatter and cry, and children who mumble a prayer.
But we sleep by the ropes of the camp, and we rise with a shout, and we
tramp
With the sun or the moon for a lamp, and the spray of the wind in our
hair.
From the lands, where the elephants are, to the forts of Merou and
Balghar,
Our steel we have brought and our star to shine on the ruins of Rum.
We have marched from the Indus to Spain, and by God we will go there
again;
We have stood on the shore of the plain where the Waters of Destiny boom.
A mart of destruction we made at Jalula where men were afraid,
For death was a difficult trade, and the sword was a broker of doom;
And the Spear was a Desert Physician who cured not a few of ambition,
And drave not a few to perdition with medicine bitter and strong:
And the shield was a grief to the fool and as bright as a desolate pool,
And as straight as the rock of Stamboul when their cavalry thundered
along:
For the coward was drowned with the brave when our battle sheered up like
a wave,
And the dead to the desert we gave, and the glory to God in our song.