In the Grand Bazaar

In the Grand Bazaar of the Damascenes,
With its violet lights and purple sheens,
And sifting in from the outer air
The shimmer of amber here and there,
You may touch through sight and sound and scent
The very heart of the Orient!
Come, then, comrade, and let us drift
With the human tides that part and shift
And surge and jostle, and taste the thrill
Of life that smacks of the desert still,
And keeps some glimmering ghost of the state
Of the glamoured days of the Caliphate!

Haughty of mien and rich of dress,
Saunter the Lords of the Wilderness —
(Mark the pride of Bassan Beni,
Sheik of a wide oasis he) —
With their camel's-hair head-ropes bound with gold
Over silvery kerchiefs fold on fold!
Sellers of sherbet and sellers of sweets,
Venders of spices and milk and meats,
Water-bearers, with cheery chants,
Droning dervishes, mendicants,—
Such is the mesh that the motley means
In the Grand Bazaar of the Damascenes!

And when the chaffer and din are done,
And the sun dips down behind Lebanon,
And the last of the pilgrim feet has trod
Through Bawabet Ullah, the Gates of God,
And there's never a sign of a veilèd face,
Nor a proud Pasha (by Allah's grace!)
Then what a pageant from Timur down
Passes this pathway of old renown,—
Spirits out-stolen from Paradise
To wander awhile in their earthly guise,
While night, with her spangled mantle, leans
O'er the Grand Bazaar of the Damascenes!