JAMES ELROY FLECKER
THE GOLDEN JOURNEY TO SAMARKAND
PROLOGUE
E who with songs beguile your pilgrimage
And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die,
We Poets of the proud old lineage
Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why,—
What shall we tell you? Tales, marvellous tales 5
Of ships and stars and isles where good men rest,
Where nevermore the rose of sunset pales,
And winds and shadows fall toward the West:
And there the world's first huge white-bearded kings
In dim glades sleeping, murmur in their sleep, 10
And closer round their breasts the ivy clings,
Cutting its pathway slow and red and deep.
II
And how beguile you? Death has no repose
Warmer and deeper than that Orient sand
Which hides the beauty and bright faith of those 15
Who made the Golden Journey to Samarkand.
And now they wait and whiten peaceably,
Those conquerors, those poets, those so fair:
They know time comes, not only you and I,
But the whole world shall whiten/ here or there; 20
When those long caravans that cross, the plain
* With dauntless feet and sound of silver bells
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