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!
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