From a Minaret

First was a gateway, arched and graven o'er
With curious characters of Koran lore;
Next came a court looked on by cloistral aisles,
Laid with alternate white and sapphire tiles
That glistened dazzlingly whene'er the sun
Flung a gold beam obliquely thereupon.
Then, on a pillar's inner side, a door,
And spiral stairs deep-hollowed by the tread
Of dead muezzins, mounting o'er and o'er,
That Islam's prayer-call might be duly said.
Within the cavernous space abode grim night,
Save where a slit, whence scarce the gaze might win,
Let here and there a fainting daybreak in.
So up we clambered, till we felt the height
Swim dizzily about us through the stone:
And then, at last, when the thick murk had grown
Breathless, and peopled with black shapes unknown,
Lo, on a sudden, Allah's throne sublime,
Stainless as truth, imperishable as time!
Not on Mohammed, when he had his will
Of visional rapture from his fabled hill,
Burst there more earthly beauty. E'en as he,
We marveled speechlessly if there could be
In paradisal ways a lovelier scene.
Beyond the roof-tops, burned to coppery gold,
Shimmered and shook long wave on wave of green
Rose-sprinkled as with sunset, where the flowers
Of the pomegranate bourgeoned, in deep bowers
Fountained and alleyed. Calm and clear and cold,
As is some monolith of polar ice,
Cinctured with pale auroras, southward showed
One monarch mountain-peak its crown-device.
Here gleamed a pool of turquoise, and there glowed
A minaret, twin to that wherefrom we gazed;
Doves circled like great burnished snowflakes; hazed
With hyacinthine vapors, lay afar
The mystery of wide deserts stretching sheer
To where for centuries the midnight star
Has dreamed o'er Babylon on its crumbled bier.
Allahu Akbar— "God is great!"—Each day
Five times this soul-cry wings its downward way
From the muezzin's lips. We, swept with awe
At the irradiant vision that we saw,
Before we turned to seek the graven gate,
The holy thought gave echo, — "God is great!"