In Philistia

The leaves of the olives waver and whiten
In the breeze that inland blows from the sea,
While the umber sand-dunes burn and brighten
Under a sky that is shadow-free.

Roving specks on the wide waste places
The few flocks seem 'mid the lupined grass;
Only the sons of the desert races
Over the ancient pathways pass.

While Ashdod dreams 'mid its cactus-hedges,
And Gaza dozes among its palms,
Ascalon looks from its lean shore-ledges
Without a beggar to whine for alms.

Gath, stone toppled from stone, is crumbled,
Scourged as though by avenging rods;
Ekron, pride of the plain, is humbled, —
Little more than her ruined gods!

Glory!—can it have here had dwelling —
(Love and hatred and sorrow and mirth!)
Where to-day are sweeping and swelling
The lonelinesses of primal earth?

Was it here that Samson the pillars parted?
Here did David a triumph win?
And did royal Richard, the lion-hearted,
Battle with Saracen Saladin?

Aye, but how in the vast of distance
No note is made of the great or small!
Merciless Time, with his still insistence,
Weaveth an amaranth shroud for all.

Sky and sun over blown green grasses,
The dirging sea and the heaping sand,
And the slouching Bedouin who passes, —
Such is the lone Philistine land!