SELECTIONS IN ENGLISH POETRY
And hafts of turquoise-studded jade, and phials rich
with scented drugs,    I5
Korans inscribed on ass's skin, and bales of silk from
TemesvJtr,
And silver ear-rings beaten thin, and bargains from the
cool bazaar.
He felt the gold already pouched, he crooned to it with
horrid love,
As still the camels onward slouched with hatred of
the men that drove.
For  thirty  days  the  caravan  trailed  on   behind the
merchant's foal,    20
Through Persia and through Turkestan,  the city of
Irkutsk their goal;
They passed the fruitful  hill-girt  lands where dwelt
the fair-skinned Grecian race,
And came into the wilder place, and sighted vagrant
Cossack bands
That   wandered   with   their   flocks   and   herds,   and
trafficked with the train of Kurds;
They stirred the ghost of Tamerlane, who swept that
way with Tartar hordes,    25
The   ghosts   of   dead   barbarian   lords,   the   Asiatic
hurricane;
They crossed the mighty road that runs from Moscow
through to China's wall,
And trod the path of nomad Huns and knew Siberia's
white pall
When fields of  Persian asphodel were visions of a
distant day
And boundless snow around them lay, and noiseless
snow for ever fell,    30
Where soon the fleeting day was rdone,  and on the
hard horizon low
408