Far in the fiery wilderness, Beyond the town of Assouan, Left languishing in sore distress, There lay a dying Dragoman. Alone amid the waste, alone, The hot sand burnt him to the bone; And on his breast, like heated stone, The burden of the air did press. His head was pillowed on a tomb, Reared to some holy Sheik of old; The irresistible Simoom Whirled drifts of sand that rose and rolled Around him, and the panting air Was one sulphureous spectral glare, Shot with such gleams as lights the lair Of tigers in a jungle's gloom. Groaning, he closed his bloodshot eyes, As if to shut out all he feared; And greedily a swarm of flies Fell on his face and tangled beard. He lay like one who ne'er would lift His head above that ashy drift; When lo, there gleamed across a rift The blue oasis of the skies. Like smoke dispersing far and wide, The draggled sands were blown away; The wild clouds in a refluent tide Receded from the face of day. The lingering airs yet lightly blew Till the last speck cleared out of view, And left the hushed Eternal Blue, And nothing else beside. Then once again, with change of moods, A mighty shadow, broadening, fell Across those shadeless solitudes, Without a Palm, without a Well. Wing wedged in wing, an ordered mass Unnumbered numbers pass and pass, As if one Will, one only, was In all those moving multitudes. A chord thrilled in the sick man's brain; He raised his heavy-lidded eyes, He raised his heavy head with pain, And caught a glimpse of netted skies, Meshed in ten thousand wings in flight That cleft the air. Oh wondrous sight! He gasped, he shrieked in sheer delight: "The Storks! The Storks fly home again! "I too, O Storks, I too, even I, Would see my native land again. Oh, had I wings that I might fly With you, wild birds, across the main! Take, take me to the land, I pray, The land where nests are full in May, The land where my young children play: Oh, take me with you, or I die. "My lonely heart blooms like a flower, My children, when I think of you, My love is like an April shower, And fills my heart with drops of dew. Along their unknown tracks, ah me! The Storks will fly across the sea; My children soon will hail with glee Their red bills on the rain-washed tower." Home-sickness seized him for the herds That browse upon the fresh green leas; Home-sickness for the cuckoo birds That shout afar in feathery trees; For running stream and rippling rill That, racing, turning his woodland mill: And tears on tears began to fill His eyes, confusing all he sees. Again he doats on rosy cheeks Of children rolling in the grass; Again the busy days and weeks, The months and years serenely pass. Black forest clocks tick day and night, His board and bed are snowy white, His humble house is just as bright As if it were a house of glass. Again, beneath the high-peaked roof, His wife's unresting shuttle flies Across the even warp and woof; Again his thrifty mother plies Her wheel, that hums like noontide bees; And lint-locked babes about her knees Hark to strange tales of talking trees, And Storks deep versed in sage replies. Again the ring of swinging chimes Calls all the pious folk to church, With shining Sunday face, betimes, Through rustling woods of beech and birch Full of moist glimmering hollows where The pines bow murmuring as in prayer, And musically through the air The forest's mighty Choral swells. Again, O Lord, again he sees The place where Heaven came down one day; Where, in a space of bloom and bees, He won his wife one morn of May. Warm pulses shook and thrilled his blood, Wild birds were singing in the wood, The flowering world in bridal mood Joined in the Pinewood's symphonies. Again, O Lord, in grief and fear, He bids good-bye to all he loves; The waters swell, the woods are sere, The Storks are gone, and hushed the doves. He goes with them; he goes to heal The sickness whose insidious seal Is set on him. Ah, tears will steal And blur the Storks that disappear. A furnace fire behind the hill, The sun has burnt itself away; The ghost of light, transparent, chill, Yet floats upon the edge of day. And all the desert holds its breath As if it felt and crouched beneath The filmy, flying bat of death About a heart for ever still. And one by one, seraphic, bland, The bright stars open in the skies; The large above the Shadow land The white-faced moon begins to rise. And all the wilderness grows wan Beneath the stars, that one by on