I heard the desert calling; and I knew that over there,
In an olive-sheltered garden where the mesquite grows,
Was a woman of the sunrise, with the starshine in her hair,
And a beauty that the almond-blossom blows.
In the night-time when the ghost-trees glimmered in the moon,
Where the mesa by the watercourse was spanned,
Her loveliness enwrapped me like the blessedness of June,
And all my life was thrilling in her hand.
I hear the desert calling, and my heart stands still;
There is Summer in my world and in my heart;
A breath comes from the mesa, and a will beyond my will
Binds my footsteps as I rise up to depart."
This strange, half-mystic song of the mesa and the olive-groves, of the
ghost-trees and the moon, kept playing upon his own heated senses like
the spray from a cooling stream, and at last it quieted him. The dark
spirit of self-destruction loosened its hold.
His brain had been strained beyond the normal, almost unconsciously his
fingers had fastened on the pistol in the drawer of the table by his bed.
Pages:
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234