Yuma

Weary, weary, desolate, Sand-swept, parched, and cursed of fate; Burning, but how passionless! Barren, bald, and pitiless! Through all ages baleful moons Glared upon thy whited dunes; And malignant, wrathful suns Fiercely drank thy streamless runs; So that Nature’s only tune Is the blare of the simoon, Piercing burnt unweeping skies With its awful monodies. Not a flower lifts its head Where the emigrant lies dead; Not a living creature calls Where the Gila Monster crawls, Hot and hideous as the sun, To the dead man’s skeleton; But the desert and the dead, And the hot hell overhead, And the blazing, seething air, And the dread mirage are there.

Collection: 
English
Charles Henry Phelps

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