Gargoyles

Zuleikha, on whose marble knees My bearded head is lazily lain, Shows like some stirring of the breeze Fluctuant in the poppied grain, No more at all: the vulgar sense is slain. Of all the world alone abides The faint perfume of Patchouli, That subtle death in love; it glides Across the opening dream, derides The fetich folly, immortality. Awake, O dream! Let distant bells And vague muezzins haunt the ear, Gaunt camels kneel by dusky wells, Imagination greyly hear: Allahu akbar! Allahu kabir! Over inhospitable sands Let the simoom its columns spin ! In snowy vales, untrodden lands, Let there be storm, and bearded bands Of robbers pass around the bubbling skin! 62