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
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