With scorching, pestilential breath
The desert-blast swept by,
And with a fierce, relentless glare
The sun looked from on high;
Yet onward still, though worn with toil,
The eager wand'rer pressed,
While hope lit up his dauntless eye,
And nerved his fainting breast.
Why paused he in his onward course?--
Why held his shuddering breath?--
Why gazed he with bewildered eye,
As on the face of death?
Before him sat in stern array,
All hushed as if in dread,
Yet still, and passionless, and calm,
A concourse of the dead!
Across the burning waste they stared
With glazed and stony eye,
As if strange fear had fixed erewhile
Their gaze on vacancy;
And woe and dread on every brow
In changeless lines were wrought,--
Sad traces of the anguish deep
That filled their latest thought!
They seemed a race of other time,
O'er whom the desert's blast,
For many a long and weary age,
In fiery wrath had passed;
Till, scathed and dry, each wasted form
Its rigid aspect wore,
Unchanged, though centuries had passed
The lonely desert o'er.
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