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[Page 19]
If I return and sit at last
Beside some hearth-fire safe and sound,
Maybe I'll send some tales around
About our doings of the Past
Of stairs that twist from musty lanes
Weird dens of sin with latticed doors
Fierce gasping fights in corridors
Slave market walls with rusty stains.
Peach-colored dawns with opal mists,
The snaky camel-train that steals,
Past oxen plodding round the wheels,
Gold bangles loading women's wrists.
The flash of anklets through the dust
Veiled women round the village well
(What dark eyes say no tongue may tell
Of hate of hate, of lust of lust)
A hundred breeds of men that meet
And strive with tales in broken speech,
Sad tales of homes far out of reach
Barbaric music weird and sweet
Huge tombs of priests and dust of kings
Rising beneath our careless tread,
While bristling kites swing overhead
A thousand thousand wondrous things
Still heaps beneath the outspread flag
The wolf-like captives pleading eye
The firing party plodding by
Quiet heads beneath a bloody rag
Are heaps of clothes that clutch and sprawl
And ghastly boys who fight for air
Old twisted mouths, wide eyes that stare
Blue skies and sunshine over all.
If I return to sit and weave
These tales and watch the homefire burn
When I return – if I return
Do you believe that they'll believe.