As I came down from Lebanon,
Like lava in the dying glow,
Through olive orchards far below
I saw the murmuring river run;
And 'neath the wall upon the sand
Swart sheiks from distant Samarcand,
With precious spices they had won,
Lay long and languidly in wait
Till they might pass the guarded gate,
As I came down from Lebanon.
As I came down from Lebanon,
I saw strange men from lands afar,
In mosque and square and gay bazar,
The Magi that the Moslem shun,
And grave Effendi from Stamboul,
Who sherbet sipped in corners cool;
And, from the balconies o'errun
With roses, gleamed the eyes of those
Who dwell in still seraglios,
As I came down from Lebanon.
As I came down from Lebanon,
The flaming flower of daytime died,
And Night, arrayed as is a bride
Of some great king, in garments spun
Of purple and the finest gold,
Outbloomed in glories manifold,
Until the moon, above the dun
And darkening desert, void of shade,
Shone like a keen Damascus blade,
As I came down from Lebanon.
The Only Way. [Louis V. Ledoux]
I
Memphis and Karnak, Luxor, Thebes, the Nile:
Of these your letters told; and I who read
Saw loom on dim horizons Egypt's dead
In march across the desert, mile on mile,
A ghostly caravan in slow defile
Between the sand and stars; and at their head
From unmapped darkness into darkness fled
The gods that Egypt feared a little while.
There black against the night I saw them loom
With captive kings and armies in array
Remembered only by their sculptured doom,
And thought: What Egypt was are we to-day.
Then rose obscure against the rearward gloom
The march of Empires yet to pass away.
II
I looked in vision down the centuries
And saw how Athens stood a sunlit while
A sovereign city free from greed and guile,
The half-embodied dream of Pericles.
Then saw I one of smooth words, swift to please,
At laggard virtue mock with shrug and smile;
With Cleon's creed rang court and peristyle,
Then sank the sun in far Sicilian seas.
From brows ignoble fell the violet crown.
Again the warning sounds; the hosts engage:
In Cleon's face we fling our battle gage,
We win as foes of Cleon loud renown;
But while we think to build the coming age
The laurel on our brows is turning brown.